There's an interesting article by David Corn in Mother Jones looking at how expansive the articles of impeachment against would-be authoritarian and con man Donald "Impeachable Me" Trump should be. It's been an article of faith among Dem leaders in the House that an article of impeachment centering only on the abuse of power / extortion and bribery involved in Trump's Ukraine shakedown can be clearly presented to the American people. That's true, but, as Corn points out, it has risks, with Trump's Rethuglican enablers already arguing that it was "inappropriate but not impeachable":
"So far, this impeachment-lite strategy appears to be working in that public opinion polls show majority support for the Democrats’ impeachment project. But it does run a risk of providing Republicans in the Senate, who will have to render a judgment if the House Democrats successfully impeach Trump, what could be an easy way out."After blowing the chance to nail Trump on ten obstruction examples contained in volume II of the Mueller Report, Dems considered the Russiagate scandal dead as far as articles of impeachment were concerned:
"They held no series of hearings on the matter. They never figured out how to sidestep Trump’s trap, in which he defined the controversy as being only a matter of direct collusion. They blew an important opportunity. [snip] They had decided voters didn’t care about that whole Russia thing, and impeachment was off the table."Literally the next day after Mueller's noncommittal testimony before Congress, a reckless Trump called Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and extorted him for dirt on former VP Biden in exchange for the release of vital military aid. With that, Dems had a solid case for impeachment. Since then, with his refusal to allow staff testimony or provide relevant subpoenaed documents, he's potentially added an obstruction of Congress article. That could to open the door to a related umbrella article beyond abuse of power: obstruction, both of Congress, and the prior Federal investigation into Russia's election meddling.
As we note in the post, below, former Trump campaign official Rick Gates' testimony in the ongoing trial of creepy guttersnipe Roger Stone suggests that Trump was aware of and involved in the WikiLeaks part of the meddling, something that he "couldn't recall" in his written responses to Mueller. Unless there are multiple, credible witnesses to back up Gates, perjury won't be added to Trump's "crimes and misdemeanors." The debate continues.
BONUS: Coming down on the "more" side:
100% agree @djrothkopf. Trump has abused his power since Day 1: lying, obstructing justice, self-dealing, failing to defend the U.S. Trump/Ukraine and Trump/Russia are the same story. Carving off only a slice of misconduct for impeachment is a big mistake. You and I are right. https://t.co/jbKvNfgOMh— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) November 12, 2019
2 comments:
While they're there, they might as well hear from a few more people. What's the harm?
bluzdude -- Given that the Senate won't convict him anyway, they might as well hit him with a couple of obvious cases of obstruction both in the Ukraine shakedown and the Russiagate scandal. For the record, and for history.
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