Democrats are so wimpy.
I’m no fan of Pelosi who had to be dragged into conducting an impeachment inquiry into Trump–almost against her will. Up until then, she was his foremost enabler by resisting one. An impeachment inquiry should have been launched over a year ago even before the Mueller Report came out. Now the inquiry has been limited to Ukraine, and there are only two articles of impeachment.
Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator involving the violation of campaign finance laws, which his former lawyer Michael Cohen is already serving time for committing. Adding that to the articles of impeachment should have been a lay-up. Robert Mueller outlined 10 occasions where Trump obstructed justice in his report, so adding those shouldn’t have been very hard either. There’s also enough public information to add violations of the emoluments clause to the articles.
Michael Cohen testified before Congress that Trump previously lowered values of his property for tax purposes and raised them to obtain loans which indicates he has committed both tax and bank fraud. Maybe Democrats could have discovered more about that (as well as likely money laundering of Russian oligarchs) if they had been investigating Trump’s financial interests and making a concerted effort to obtain Trump’s business and tax returns much, much earlier. Legislators in New York went out of their way to make it possible for Rep. Richard Neal (Democratic Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee) to ask for Trump’s state tax returns, but Neal dragged his feet long enough for Trump to start lawsuits to stop them from being released for the time being. Neal also dragged his feet before he requested Trump’s federal tax returns. And, after the Treasury Department refused to furnish them, Neal waited MONTHS before suing the Treasury and the IRS to try and obtain the documents. In other words, Democrats have never seemed all that interested in “following the money” regarding Trump, where his biggest crimes might have been exposed. [Trump was probably worried that Mueller was looking into the money laundering angle (which would explain his obstruction efforts), but Mueller didn’t.]
Regardless, these are just SOME of the crimes that should have been covered in the hearings and eventually included in any articles of impeachment. IMO, narrowing the focus is a mistake for many reasons, not the least of which is what it signals to the future. As Brian Klaas wrote in a Washington Post article back in October, “There is no clause in the Constitution that allows presidents to commit crimes. If some of his abuses are not included in the eventual articles of impeachment, it sets the precedent that a future president can get away with similar conduct.”
These people in Congress swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. By limiting the scope of impeachment, they are sacrificing principle and violating their oath for a poor political calculation.
