I read the Impeachment Report to Accompany H. Res. 775
Ready for some nerdy fun?
Let’s dive in.
Spoiler: Yup, Trump committed “multiple federal crimes.”
The report integrates the information from the Judiciary Report on the Constitutional Grounds for Impeachment, so if you missed my Over the Cliff Notes for that report, please read this.
There. Now you’re caught up.
This report addresses many of the GOP talking points, like the claim that there was no crime and no direct evidence, like this tweet from Rep. Paul Gosar:
The report reminds us that it isn’t necessary for behavior to meet the elements of a statutory crime (see link in Tweet #1) and then explains that Trump’s behavior meets the elements of Criminal Bribery, 18 U.S.C. § 201.
Why did the majority decided to call Trump’s behavior “abuse of power” instead of bribery? Because calling it “bribery” minimizes the seriousness of Trump’s behavior.
Trump’s behavior went beyond bribery and betrayed national security interests.
Trump’s behavior also meets the elements of Honest Services Fraud 18 U.S.C § 1346, another statutory crime, on the grounds that Trump knowingly and willfully orchestrated a scheme to defraud the American people of his honest services as President. (See pages 126-127)
And if that isn’t enough, Trump also committed wire fraud which requires using “wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce . . . for the purpose of executing” a fraudulent scheme.
The crime of fraud debunks another absurd GOP talking point:
Here you see Cornyn drawing a false equivalence, claiming that Democratic Senators running for president are similarly seeking to remove a rival for a political benefit.
Trump, in contrast, was running a secret scheme which would have resulted in Ukraine announcing investigations into the Bidens which would discredit his rival while making it appear (falsely) that the investigation spontaneously came from the Ukrainians.
[Narrator: In arguing that impeachable behavior must go beyond a mere crime and endanger national security, the report will make it harder to impeach presidents for trivial crimes, as with the Clinton impeachment.]
The Intelligence Committee Report also contained Witness Intimidation, another federal crime.
(You can click on these images to see them larger.)
[Narrator: Will that satisfy the “Where’s the Crime?” crowd? Answer: Noooo.]
The report also debunks the “but there is no direct evidence” claim:
(The paragraph spanned 2 pages.)
[Narrator: Members of Congress saying “there’s no direct evidence” know perfectly well that most crimes are proven with circumstantial evidence. They’re kicking up dust.]
The report also addresses the claim that if a president has power to do something (like fire someone or issue pardons) he cannot be impeached for exercising that power.
This is a favorite GOP talking point: Trump had the right to do it, so he can’t be impeached for it.
Nope. Any power can be used for corrupt purposes.
Notice that the report also quotes Madison saying that a president can even be impeached for abuse of the pardon power if used corruptly:
If you’d like a handy summary of the key facts, condensed to a single page, I took each of these sentences from the report:
The minority also presents its defense, which contains nothing new, and which I won’t delve into because I don’t feel like playing whack-a-lie.
