‘Please, Democrats, Don’t Make the Impeachment Articles Too Narrow’

Prolonging the process is actually the politically smart thing to do, argues Moira Donegan in The Guardian. Impeaching Mr. Trump for potential violations of the emoluments clause, for example, could draw the hearings out into the summer, both darkening and extending the shadow of corruption cast on Mr. Trump ahead of the 2020 election. Ms. Donegan writes:

Polls suggest that in the partisan media landscape, many voters’ opinions have already calcified, but it remains likely that a full and public accounting of Trump’s copious wrongdoing, broadcast on television and covered in detail by the media, could change minds in a way that an abrupt party-line vote on a narrow and esoteric set of issues might not.

Building the better best case

Contra The New York Times editorial board, Times columnist Michelle Goldberg argues that building the best case on the Ukraine affair actually requires talking about Mr. Trump’s obstruction of the Mueller investigation, since it helps prove a pattern of corruption. She writes:

The urgency of Democrats’ impeachment process — the subject of much bad-faith caterwauling on the right — is best justified by Trump’s recidivism. Impeachment isn’t just about holding Trump accountable for a discrete scandal. It’s about trying, against the odds, to stop an ongoing campaign to subvert the 2020 election, one that is building on tactics from 2016.

‘Trump deserves to be impeached for every offense’

Nixon reconsidered

Looking at the Nixon impeachment in a different light, Carolyn Eisenberg warns that the impeachment articles written now will have far-reaching historical ramifications. She notes that in addition to Watergate, the House Judiciary Committee considered impeaching Nixon for his secret bombing of Cambodia, which helped pave the way for a disastrous civil war and genocide in that country.

According to Ms. Eisenberg, those bombings were a far more serious violation of law than Watergate. But the related article was eventually rejected, a decision she says has contributed to a kind of collective forgetting: “By failing to address the lawless bombing of Cambodia and the tragic results, the committee framed how the events of that time have been remembered.”

The moral argument

For history’s sake, the Democrats have a moral duty to impeach Mr. Trump on every count of wrongdoing, says Times columnist Charles Blow — even if it requires impeaching him more than once. Democrats should draft articles focused on the Ukraine affair now, he argues, but they should keep the impeachment inquiry open until all of his corruption is exposed. He writes:

There is an apolitical truth: All political corruption, abuses of power, conspiracies, cover-ups and attempts to deceive and mislead the public are wrong. Many Trump loyalists will never accede to this point, but many more Americans, at the core, know this difference between right and wrong. … Trump must be held accountable, fully and completely.

Eight

That’s how many articles the president merits, according to Times columnist David Leonhardt. On Mr. Leonhardt’s list of impeachable offenses are profiting from the office, violating campaign finance laws, abuse of pardons and “conduct grossly incompatible with the presidency.” Mr. Leonhardt stops short of adding racism to the list, as he says it doesn’t violate the Constitution.