A version of a legal determination released by the Justice Department points to an allegation that Mr. Trump may have violated a law that prohibits the solicitation of an illegal foreign campaign contribution, which doesn’t necessarily mean money, it can also mean a “thing of value.”

But it’s also worth noting that when it comes to impeachment, the president need not have committed a violation of an ordinary criminal statute to have committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.” That term came out of the British common law tradition and essentially means an abuse of power by a high-level public official.

Arguing for the ratification of the Constitution in 1788, Alexander Hamilton described impeachable crimes as “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

— Charlie Savage

The Democrats’ Goals

Given everything we know about the Senate, how likely is it that Trump will be removed from office? Is pursuing an impeachment inquiry to remove Trump from power more of an effort to effectively remove him from office or is it more useful in promoting a negative view of the president in the eyes of the public?

— Daniel Vance, Washington

Considering the Republican majority in the Senate, it seems very unlikely that Mr. Trump would be convicted in that chamber if ultimately impeached by the House because it would require 67 votes to remove him. That means a minimum of 20 Republicans would have to break to join all 47 Democrats to oust the president. Senate Republicans have been mainly steadfast in their support of the president thus far.