We begin today’s roundup with USA Today’s editorial in favor of impeachment:
In his thuggish effort to trade American arms for foreign dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Trump resembles not so much Clinton as he does Richard Nixon, another corrupt president who tried to cheat his way to reelection.
This isn’t partisan politics as usual. It is precisely the type of misconduct the framers had in mind when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton supported a robust presidency but worried about “a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper” coming to power. Impeachment, Hamilton wrote, was a mechanism to protect the nation “from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
Here is Eugene Robinson’s analysis of the evidence so far:
The president’s defenders are correct when they say “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” are not statutory crimes. They are, in fact, worse. The stripped-down impeachment articles against President Trump go to the heart of his blatant misconduct, which poses a direct challenge to the Constitution. I know that sounds grandiose to describe the offenses of such a small man as Trump. But it is true.
The Washington Post lashes out at Republicans who refuse to even acknowledge reality:
Remarkably, not one GOP member of the Judiciary Committee was ready to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with Mr. Trump’s demand that a foreign government pursue false charges against one of his most likely Democratic opponents in the 2020 election. They could have followed the example of the several Republican legislators who have said Mr. Trump’s actions were improper but not impeachable. Instead, they offered a display of blind fealty, portraying Mr. Trump as a victim of Democratic persecution while ignoring or misrepresenting the evidence against him.
Dana Milbank profiles the antics of Matt Gaetz, whose behavior has demonstrated he has no role serving in Congress:
There are good people on both sides of the aisle, but in the quarter-century I’ve covered Washington, Gaetz is among the most vulgar I have ever encountered. He invited a Holocaust denier to be his State of the Union guest. He led the Republicans’ storming of a secure hearing room, endangering government secrets. And now this.
Here’s Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein at The Nation:
he House Judiciary Committee seriously blundered this week in voting two narrow articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump: abuse of power, and obstruction of the impeachment investigation. The charges should have been much broader to address far more serious constitutional usurpations and derelictions. Trump correctly characterized them as the lightest presidential impeachment accusations in more than two centuries. [...] We fought the Revolutionary War, however, to overthrow the idea that the king can do no wrong. Indeed, the United States Constitution would have been shipwrecked if the absolute executive power voiced by Trump and Nixon had been espoused by its proponents.
On a final note, don’t miss Neil Young’s analysis of Bill Barr’s partisan conduct at The Week:
President Trump may not need Rudy Giuliani after all. Attorney General William Barr has made it clear that he's acting not as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, but as Trump's personal attorney. Who needs Giuliani when you can get the A.G. to do your dirty work?