To recap, while I agree with @repadamschiff that the bribery case against Trump is the strongest because bribery is specifically mentioned in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment, there are other very nearly equally strong counts that could be brought:
- We know he lied under oath to Mueller
- We know he violated both the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses of the Constitution
- We know he violated FEC rules (per the Cohen case)
- We know he obstructed justice many times (per Mueller)
- We know he failed to cooperate with subpoenas from the Congress
- We know he violated the law requiring him to turn over his taxes to the Congress
These are all clear cut cases where there are mountains of proof and where prosecution of anyone else would take place.
There are, of course, many other cases of abuses of Congress, lying, potential tax fraud, serial abuse of women, commission of human rights abuses at our border, conspiracy with a foreign enemy to attack our elections, abuse of power, negligence or worse in the case of Puerto Rico and in my view, there is a Constitutional responsibility to investigate these abuses and where proof is established to make the cases for impeachment there as well. You may be able to think of and cite others. But beyond the two areas which Schiff has cited as a primary focus, there are at least a half a dozen others that are open and shut cases of impeachable offenses. To not investigate them, to not hold the president accountable for them, is to to invite the president\’s assertion they were not crimes or that he has been, as he likes to put it, \”exonerated.\” It minimizes and reduces efforts like those of Mueller while seeming to confirm the fabricated and dishonest assertions and twisted theories of Trump, Barr, McConnell, Graham and company. Further, the message its sends to future presidents is that they are indeed above the law, that the oath of office is plastic and its consideration is merely optional, particularly if you have the political protection of one house of Congress or a corrupt Attorney General. Not investigating these cases therefore does lasting damage to our democracy. That it also reconfirms a message to foreign enemies that America\’s democracy is not only weak, but that there are ways president\’s can collaborate with them to undermine it that can bring those enemies favor from corrupted US governments is, it should go without saying, a profound danger. Indeed the failure to hold Trump and Russia truly accountable for the 2016 attack–Mueller convictions and indictments aside–already directly led to the president\’s belief he could do what he did in Ukraine.
Laws are not just suggestions for a free society. They must be enforced to have value. For all members of society. If one person is able to operate beyond their reach or sees them only selectively enforced then one of the most important principles on which our democracy was founded has been undermined and negated and we have started on the long and dangerous road back to tyranny.
@RepAdamSchiff in my view is a very good man, one of the very best public servants we have in our Congress. This is not an attack on him.
Rather, it is simply to make the point that there is work to be done beyond the core case that is being made, whether it is done at the same time as that case or afterwards. And that there is a responsibility to future generations to do that work.
