Issues & Insights
"Why would House Democrats put forward articles of impeachment that are laughably weak and have no chance of removing President Donald Trump from office? Most of the speculation has been that the impeachment will nevertheless hurt Trump’s reelection chances. There’s another possibility that’s even more insidious.
"Democratic Party leaders can’t possibly be unaware of the fact that their impeachment case has no merit. Despite the endless talk of bribery, extortion, campaign finance violations and other supposed crimes Trump has committed, not one of the articles of impeachment accuses Trump of breaking any of those laws, or any federal law for that matter.
"Instead, they accuse Trump of an “abuse of power” and of “obstruction of Congress.” As Sen. Ted Cruz explained this week at a
Heritage Foundation event, as weak as the first article is, “the second article is orders of magnitude weaker.”
“ 'They’ve simply said that the mere fact that you assert a privilege is itself impeachable, without their bothering to issue a subpoena or litigating anything.
“ 'If that is impeachable conduct,” Cruz went on, “all 45 presidents we have had in the United States have committed impeachable offenses.”
"Mind you, this is in sharp contrast to the articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, which charged him with committing two felonies – perjury before a federal grand jury and obstruction of justice.
"Note, too, that the Republican-controlled House rejected an article of impeachment accusing Clinton of “abuse of power.” Also, note that the two articles that did pass the House attracted five Democratic votes, which means that Clinton’s impeachment had infinitely more bipartisan support than the current circus." . . .