The Democratic grounds for ousting Trump are weak—and damaging to constitutional norms.

By The Editorial Board

Dec. 11, 2019 7:15 pm ET

Opinion: Democrats Shrink Impeachment to Two Weak Articles

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Opinion: Democrats Shrink Impeachment to Two Weak Articles

Opinion: Democrats Shrink Impeachment to Two Weak Articles

Bribery, extortion and other claims vanish as Democrats narrow their articles of impeachment and include no violations of law. Image: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

So that’s it? That’s all there is? After all the talk of obstruction of justice, collusion with Russia, bribery, extortion, profiting from the Presidency, and more, House Democrats have reduced their articles of impeachment against President Trump to two: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Honey, we shrunk the impeachment.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will vote as early as Thursday on the text of the two articles they unveiled Tuesday, and then they will rush it to the floor next week. It’s enough to suspect that Democrats understand they are offering the weakest case for impeachment since Andrew Johnson, that the public isn’t convinced, and so they simply want to get it over with.

***

At least Johnson was impeached for violating a specific statute, the Tenure of Office Act, by firing Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War. There was wide agreement that Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton violated criminal statutes. In this case Democrats don’t even try to allege a criminal act.

Democrats Shrink Their Case For Impeachment

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Whatever happened to bribery and extortion? Democrats spent weeks talking them up as the crimes of Mr. Trump’s Ukraine interventions. They had turned to those words after focus groups with voters found them more compelling than “quid pro quo.” Yet suddenly they’re gone. Have Democrats concluded that Mr. Trump’s actions aren’t illegal under statutes that have specific meaning?

Democrats have retreated instead to charge “abuse of power,” a phrase general enough for anything Congress wants to stuff into it. They don’t even pretend any more to prove a quid pro quo. Instead they assert that Mr. Trump, in his phone call with Ukraine’s president, “solicited the interference of a foreign government” in the 2020 election “in pursuit of personal political benefit.” They also assert that this “compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process.”

Their problem is that Mr. Trump didn’t withhold military aid to Ukraine, and even if he had he would have merely been returning to Barack Obama’s policy of denying lethal aid. How would that have jeopardized national security? Every President also solicits actions from foreign leaders that he hopes will help him politically at home.

We don’t condone Mr. Trump’s mention of Joe Biden in his call to Ukraine’s President, which was far from perfect and reflects his often bad judgment. But “abuse of power” on this evidence is a new and low standard for impeachment that will come back to haunt future Presidents of all parties.

As for corrupting the 2020 election, even if Ukraine had announced an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, Mr. Trump couldn’t know how effective it would be, how long it would take, or whether it might even exonerate them. The election is still a year away. If the mere announcement of a foreign government’s investigation into corruption can poison a U.S. election, then American democracy must be weaker than even its enemies think.

The second Democratic article is weaker in that it amounts to impeaching Mr. Trump because he is resisting their subpoenas. “Without lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices and officials not to comply with those subpoenas,” the article charges.

His lawful cause is defending his presidential powers under the Constitution. Every modern President has to some extent or another resisted Congressional or special-counsel subpoenas. Nixon and Mr. Clinton did until they lost at the Supreme Court. House Democrats are refusing even to fight in court, claiming impeachment gives them plenary power to see all documents and any witnesses they want.

This ignores that the Constitution stipulates co-equal branches that each have the right to defend their powers. If Democrats are right in their claim, then every President essentially works for Congress. We should skip elections and let Congress choose the President.

Democrats also claim the emergency of time, and as usual Rep. Adam Schiff puts this case in the least credible way. “The argument ‘why don’t you just wait?’ amounts to this: Why don’t you just let [Mr. Trump] cheat in one more election? Why not let him cheat just one more time?,” Mr. Schiff told the press as the articles were unveiled.

But Mr. Trump didn’t cheat to win in 2016, as Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion investigation demonstrated after two years of looking. As for 2020, the Constitution includes no clause for pre-emptive impeachment to prevent acts that a President might commit.

***

Democrats wrap these charges in high-toned rhetoric about “this solemn day” and quotes from Benjamin Franklin. But they are essentially impeaching Mr. Trump because they despise him and the way he governs.

This is the classic standard of “maladministration,” which the Founders explicitly considered but excluded from the Constitution as grounds for impeachment. They did so because they feared that partisan Congresses would too easily impeach Presidents of the opposite political faction on this subjective basis, rather than for serious offenses.

In their wisdom, the American people seem to have figured all this out. Despite one-sided lobbying by the impeachment press, the polls show that a majority opposes removing Mr. Trump from office. This may be the real explanation behind the Democratic move to shrink impeachment. Democrats now want a fast and furious vote to satisfy their most anti-Trump partisans, dump the mess on the Senate, and campaign on something else.

They shouldn’t get off that easy. By defining impeachment down, they are turning what should be a rare and extraordinary constitutional remedy into a routine tool of partisan warfare. They are harming constitutional norms, as the liberals like to say.

Americans will decide in 11 months whether Mr. Trump deserves to remain in office. But they should also keep the impeachment vote very much in mind when they decide whether Democrats deserve to keep the House.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254253)

Boomers will be dead soon and no one cares about "norms" or precedent or using "reasons" to prosecute or defend Trump. Team blue has the votes or they don't, fuck the other side by any means available.

Red or blue fascism is coming the moment the last WSJ-reading boomer feels a pang in his chest. No one gives a fuck about this nonsense

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254267)

If Trump is Sulla so be it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254683)

"As for corrupting the 2020 election, even if Ukraine had announced an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, Mr. Trump couldn’t know how effective it would be, how long it would take, or whether it might even exonerate them. The election is still a year away. If the mere announcement of a foreign government’s investigation into corruption can poison a U.S. election, then American democracy must be weaker than even its enemies think. "

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254651)

was that to benefit the usa or the dnc? same fucking thing, except biden's corruption is staring everyone in the face and trump's is nonexistent even after lying and cheating to get spy warrants on him

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254767)

cr, I believe that in legal circles it's referred to as "Orange Man Bad"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254817)

Because it absolutely gaped you

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39260067)

if Trump asked Ukraine to invent evidence against Joe Biden, that would be a problem. but if Trump asks Ukraine to investigate incredibly shitty conduct by Hunter Biden, that benefits the US.

recall that Horowitz just emphasized how low the bar is for DOJ to open an investigation: it takes only "articulable facts." here Trump has motherfucking video tape of Joe Biden boasting about shadiness. it's in the US best interests to know what happened.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254935)

1. nobody is alleging Trump did anything with respect to any other candidates, even the frontrunners. he only asked them to look into it wrt Hunter and Joe, and there honestly is a reasonable suspicion of corruption there

2. nobody on the dem side is digging into the benefits they thought this provided Trump. like, wouldn't you call witnesses or otherwise provide evidence that (i) Trump considered Biden to be the likely nominee, (ii) Trump had specific concerns related to Biden as an opponent, (iii) showed how Trump thought this would help him in an election outside of any ACTUAL corruption that might have been going on?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254956)

Only on xoxo is that even a valid attack.

“WHY WON’T YOU ENGAFE ME SHITLIB!?!”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261593)

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2018/02/05/why_carter_page_was_worth_watching_433391.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39260662)

if you're serious, i hoap you realize that you've linked to the type of typical media bullshit that Horowitz has blown of the water.

that author, Luke Harding, has made a career out of pushing the most extreme form of "Trump colluded!" and "Trump's a Russian agent!" bullshit. Harding's credibility should have been zero all along, and should have been over at least by when the Mueller Report came out. now that the Horowitz Report is out, Harding should be ashamed to show his face in public and The Guardian should issue an apology and retraction.

to start at the top, it trashes the famous Nunes Memo -- when the Horowitz report massively validated that memo and proved that Schiff's memo was just lies.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261092)

"Most remarkable was the unlikely hero at the center of this national row, Carter Page. The memo alleged that the bureau bugged his communications after deliberately duping the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Not only that but using supposedly flawed material supplied by Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer whose dossier accused Trump of consorting with Russian president and former KGB operative Vladimir Putin. But who exactly was Carter Page? And were there, in fact, genuine reasons why the FBI might have ground for suspecting him?"

take another look at that sentence:

"The memo alleged that the bureau bugged his communications after deliberately duping the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

Nunes was right. That author was a bootlicker.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261111)

"According to the Steele dossier —vehemently disputed by Page and subsequently rubbished by Nunes, and Republicans —the real purpose of Page’s trip was clandestine. He had come to meet with the Kremlin. And in particular with Igor Sechin. Sechin was a former spy and, more importantly, someone who commanded Putin’s absolute confidence. He was in effect Russia’s second most powerful official, its de facto deputy leader."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261127)

The FBI presented its evidence before a secret tribunal— the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, court, which handles sensitive national security cases. The bureau argued that there were strong grounds to believe that Page was acting as a Russian agent. The judge agreed. From this point on, the FBI was able to access Page’s electronic communications. An initial ninety-day warrant was later renewed.

As the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, Steele’s research formed only part of the application. Four separate federal judges approved these renewals. All were appointed by Republican presidents.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261150)

-------

In the classified briefing to congressional leaders in late August 2016 Page’s name figured prominently. The CIA and FBI were sifting through a mound of intercept material featuring Page, much of it “Russians talking to Russians,” according to one former National Security Council member. When Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote to Comey in early autumn, he cited “disturbing” contacts between a Trump adviser and “high-ranking sanctioned individuals.” That was Page. And Sechin.

These embarrassing details surfaced in a report by Yahoo! News. Within hours, the Trump campaign had disavowed Page—casting him out as a nobody who had exaggerated his links to Trump. All of which made his subsequent rehabilitation by Nunes more bizarre. Page exited the campaign in late September. It was an inglorious end, and his troubles were just beginning. Steele’s Rosneft source was right. In early December—less than a month after Trump won the White House—Rosneft announced it was selling 19.5 percent of its stock. This was one of the biggest privatizations since the 1990s and, on the face of it, a vote of confidence in the Russian economy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261160)

I have a question for you about this. Doesn't this framing depend on (a) an assumption that nothing at all nefarious went on in relation to Ukraine, Biden, or the 2016 election, and/or (b) that Trump did not legitimately believe that anything nefarious went on?

I mean, if Trump legitimately believed (or even thought it was a realistic possibility) that Biden used his power as VP to force Ukraine to help his son, or that some sort of election interference happened in relation to a server in Ukraine, then asking for an investigation is not "purely personal purposes" right?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261188)

There's testimony that all the administration wanted was an announcement of an investigation, which tends to show that the scheme to withhold aid was merely to benefit his campaign and in no way related to rooting out corruption as a matter of foreign policy. I think the emissaries used to carry out this scheme also evidence the personal purpose behind the scheme. I don't think impeachment is worth it, only because Congress is not a court. There's no detailed process or precedent for impeachment or any judge to ensure that these rules are followed. So the process devolves into a pointless political food fight.

But again, my post above has nothing to do with that. I responded above to point out how shitty that paragraph in the WSJ op-ed is. Whether you think a defendant's criminal conduct would have benefited him in the long run or have been likely to succeed does not bear on whether the conduct was criminal or not. It's an awful defense.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261559)

you said libs are arguing it was for purely personal purposes and then you use arguments such as

"all the administration wanted was an announcement of an investigation", lol bullshit. they wanted the investigation and the announcement. so what?

actually, intent is often an extremely good defense to a criminal defense.

you lame ass dems are trying to exclude all other reasonable possibilities as if removing a president is supposed to occur at reasonable suspicion/rational basis level of scrutiny with the accuser getting all benefit of the doubt. stupid.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39261745)

u guys are really this dumb?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39255850)

All I want for Christmas is...President Pence

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4399882&forum_id=2#39254835)