I don’t remember who made this point, but it seems right: We don’t know what the political impact of a refusal by the Senate to convict (after impeachment by the House) might be, so the House might as well do the right thing.
At the end of the inquiry, the House could impeach. Alternatively, it could pass a resolution saying the President had committed numerous impeachable offenses and detail them in a full report, but determine not to impeach to save the country from a mock trial in the Senate.
The Republicans will argue that only criminal acts can justify impeachment. Of course, there have been many of those. Think of what Trump ordered Michael Cohen to do. Recall the many acts of obstruction of justice. The actions of Trump toward the Ukraine violate campaign finance law (despite the twisted logic of Trump’s cronies in the Justice Department). In addition, I, for one, find it utterly implausible that Manafort’s providing campaign information to a Russian agent was bereft of criminal intent known by the campaign.
But the worst acts of Trump may or may not be criminal. Trump’s actions refusing to permit oversight by the House by declaring a war on complying with subpoenas, and by abandoning the rule of law in other ways (think of the failure of the administration to hand over the tax returns and the whistle blower’s complaint. The loud proclamation that the Trump Administration welcomes election help from foreign governments is an impeachable offense whether criminal or not. Equally, important is the obvious placing of Trump’s personal (including financial) interests over the public interest, and the promotion of Russian interests over the public interest. Finally, I think Trump’s politics of division so well illustrated by his racism is inconsistent with our Constitution and should not be tolerated in an American President.
During the coming months, however, the most important task of Democrats is to persuade the media to pay attention to the many important bills that the House Democrats have passed that Moscow Mitch has blocked on behalf of the wealthy and large corporations instead of the people public servants are supposed to represent.
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