The Impeachment Reality

Yesterday I wrote about why Congress shouldn't impeach Trump. Today, I'll write about why they should. On July 25th, the President had a conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky. I'm going to quote directly from the White House transcript (obtained from the White House website):  "Germany does almost nothing for you.  All they do is talk and I think it's something that you should really ask them about.  When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she doesn't do anything."  While this is not an impeachable offense, I find it incredibly distasteful that the Trump is casting aspersions about an important ally to another head of state.  This goes against everything that we should stand for as a country.  

"I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it."  Again, why Trump is wasting his time asking a foreign country to investigate an American company based on rumors is just unprofessional, again, not impeachable.

"The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that."  Again, questioning our own diplomat with a foreign country is unprofessional.  Also, not impeachable.

"The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me."  This is where things get interesting.  Trump is clearly targeting a political opponent and asking a foreign government to investigate him.  This does get into potentially impeachable conduct.  The President of the United States should not be asking a foreign government to investigate a political opponent.  It's wrong on many levels.  

As some of the other witnesses ultimately testified, it definitely appears that the President asked the Ukrainian leader to announce an investigation into the Biden's.  It also appears that he made military aid dependent on this announcement.  

Here's the deal.  If this were a one off, and Trump acknowledged that he had overstepped his bounds, I agree that this might not rise to the level of impeachment.  However, this behavior is quite consistent with a pattern that Trump has.  Furthermore, Trump clearly believes that he is above the law (his 5th Avenue shooting remark is only one of many statements that reflect this).  

The Democrats are well within their rights to impeach Trump.  The Republicans are well within their rights to believe that he shouldn't be impeached and the Senate will make the ultimate determination on whether to convict or not.  The American people will ultimately be the judges during the next election.  That is what American is all about.