From high crimes to misdemeanors

Republicans claim President Trump committed no impeachable offenses; Democrats agreed by not charging him with any. Democrats designed two milquetoast impeachment articles to salvage partisan House floor votes, but with no chance of success in the Senate or the general public. Instead of indicting the president, they have incriminated their own case by taking it from high crimes to misdemeanors. 

On Friday, December 13, the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment on party-line votes; less than a week later, the House impeached the president on another partisan vote. The charges against President Trump are obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. On these charges, the Senate will sit as jurors in a trial to determine whether Trump should be removed from office. 

The House Judiciary Committee met for just a week. The full House debated for just hours. The American people cannot be blamed for wondering whether this is just at all. 

Impeachment is the Constitution’s most serious power; it is the only means by which one branch, the legislative, can remove occupants of the other two — the executive and the judiciary. Such a momentous step would seemingly demand momentous charges. Yet rather than momentous, House Democrats settled for monotonous. As in Aesop’s fable, the mountain labored and brought forth a mouse. 

For most, “obstruction of Congress” is a redundancy. Congress is the exemplar of Washington gridlock and is perhaps the most obstructed government body in all America — and has the public support to prove it. According to a recent Real Clear Politics average of national polling, its job approval stood at just 22.4 percent — half the president’s. 

A recent Hill opinion article by Alan Dershowitz outlined how the Supreme Court’s decision to review lower court decisions regarding congressional subpoenas of the administration undercut the obstruction of Congress charge. 

Nor is the question of power limits between the executive and legislative new; rather, they are as old as the Constitution itself. Unquestionably, the executive has been the government’s ascendant branch for over a century. Much of the executive’s increased power has been ceded by Congress. 

Under such circumstances, leveling the charge of abuse goes from the vague to the vacuous. If there have been abuses, it is incumbent on those impeaching to state them explicitly. 

For his entire presidency, Democrats have not lacked for words in their abuse allegations against the president. Yet, when it comes time to impeach in reality, rather than just rhetorically, they are at a loss for words. They have regularly bandied the words “bribery” and “extortion,” words that carry weight. For almost a year, Democrats have held a House majority and produced volumes of reports. But now they find themselves at a loss for weighty words worthy of impeachment.

While impeachment will be formally tried in the Senate, the real trial, and the one that really matters, is the one in the court of public opinion. Democrats thoroughly undermine their case by incessantly increasing the rhetoric around their claims of Trump’s offenses and then diminishing the reality in impeachment.

It’s obvious why Democrats took this route. They did it to secure the votes of their most vulnerable members, whose votes were necessary for impeachment. Yet that has left them in a position of pursuing the maximum penalty for minimal reasons. 

Democrats are trying to have it both ways. They are more likely to have it neither way. Republicans and Trump will be the political winners here.

With the GOP Senate majority, the Republican process will look more serious and deliberate. They will look fair, a first in what has been a one-sided process in one body of Congress. In all these comparisons, Democrats’ House process will come off poorly — looking rushed, staged and biased. 

President Trump will benefit even more. The Senate will acquit him — likely with majority and possibly bipartisan support. For most Americans, this will be vindication. It will remove a cloud Democrats have held over the president’s head for the entirety of his presidency. 

Already climbing in the polls, despite being at what should be his low, Trump’s political ceiling should rise. As for Democrats, already unable to gain traction with their stable of 2020 candidates, their undoubted inability to walk away from impeachment – even after a Senate acquittal – will make them look even more extreme and risks lowering their floor even more. 

J.T. Young served under President George W. Bush as the director of communications in the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy assistant secretary in legislative affairs for tax and budget at the Treasury Department. He served as a congressional staffer from 1987 through 2000.