All the Ferment

The editors of the Wall Street Journal the present state of the march to impeachment in the House:

The impeachment case—after the failure of non-collusion with Russia and the non-obstruction of Robert Mueller —now boils down to President Trump’s dealings over a few weeks this summer with new Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Readers who want to save time should read Mr. Schiff’s opening statement Wednesday because it offers the most damning interpretation of events.

Mr. Schiff’s claim is that Mr. Trump sought to “condition, coerce, extort or bribe an ally into conducting investigations to aid his re-election campaign.” He did this by having his Administration threaten to withhold U.S. military aid and deny an Oval Office meeting until Mr. Zelensky publicly announced a corruption probe. That sums up the case.

We are not defending Mr. Trump’s phone call with Mr. Zelensky or any plan to deny military aid. Sending his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to lobby Ukrainian officials outside formal U.S. diplomatic channels was dumb, ran counter to Mr. Trump’s own policy, and was ultimately self-destructive.

Mr. Giuliani was hardly quiet about his efforts, and it appears that most of the American bureaucracy had heard something about it. Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, opposed it. In the end the aid was delivered and Mr. Zelensky never began a corruption investigation. Like much else in this Administration, Mr. Trump’s worst impulses were blocked.

Mr. Schiff says this is still an impeachable “abuse of power” because criminals can be prosecuted if their attempts fail. But there is no underlying crime here. Democrats have given up calling it a “quid pro quo,” which must not have played well in polling. Instead they are using “extortion” and “bribery” to suggest a crime without citing any specific statute.

The Justice Department has already dismissed the bribery claim because there was no “thing of value” exchanged. And the extortion charge is absurd regarding U.S. aid to a foreign government.

or, said another way, despite the wall to wall news coverage and the many revelations very little has actually changed since my first post on this subject. It is likely that the House Democrats will vote to impeach and it is likely that the Senate Republicans will vote to acquit. A narrow majority of Americans think that Trump should be impeached. The House Democrats still need to define what it is that Trump did they are impeaching him for and do it in such a way that doesn’t undermine the ability of future presidents to negotiate with other countries. Most negotiations with foreign countries, involve the exchange of something tangible, e.g. monetary aid to the country, for something intangible, including things that may have political benefit for the president, e.g. fulfilling a campaign promise. They will be interesting articles of impeachment.

And I return to something I have mentioned from time to time. I would not be upset if the president were impeached but I would be upset if, in their zeal to impeach Trump, the Democrats fail to remove him from office and instead succeed in ensuring his re-election with the presidency itself as collateral damage.