Would you like to see formal articles of impeachment focus only on Ukraine?

[Poiuyt]

Some are advocating keeping the impeachment process focused solely on the Ukraine issue because it's simple to understand and easier to prove than some of his other crimes.

Others are saying that Nadler should throw the book at him. Here's a website with a nice compilation of impeachable offenses:

Violation of Constitution on Domestic Emoluments
Violation of Constitution on Foreign Emoluments
Incitement of Violence
Interference With Voting Rights
Discrimination Based On Religion
Illegal War
Illegal Threat of Nuclear War
Abuse of Pardon Power
Obstruction of Justice
Politicizing Prosecutions
Collusion Against the United States with a Foreign Government
Failure to Reasonably Prepare for or Respond to Hurricanes Harvey and Maria
Separating Children and Infants from Families
Illegally Attempting to Influence an Election
Tax Fraud and Public Misrepresentation
Assaulting Freedom of the Press
Supporting a Coup in Venezuela
Unconstitutional Declaration of Emergency
Instructing Border Patrol to Violate the Law
Refusal to Comply With Subpoenas
Declaration of Emergency Without Basis In Order to Violate the Will of Congress
Illegal Proliferation of Nuclear Technology
Illegally Removing the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment

Part of me wants to see this so that all of trump's crimes are well documented for the future. I don't want anyone forgetting just how bad a president he is.

Benjamin Wittes, et al over at Lawfare said:
We think Congress should focus its impeachment consideration—if, indeed, it now means to conduct a formal impeachment inquiry—on five major areas, each of which could easily support an article of impeachment.

• The first is obstruction of justice and abuse of law enforcement institutions and personnel.
• The second involves his attempts to leverage the power of the presidency to cause investigation and prosecution of political opponents.
• The third broad area Congress should focus on is the abuse of the president’s foreign policy authorities and misuse of congressionally appropriated money to induce a foreign head of state to violate the civil liberties of U.S. persons and interfere in a presidential election.
• The fourth area for Congress to focus on in considering impeachment is the president’s efforts to obstruct or impede congressional investigations.
• A final area Congress should examine is Trump’s lying to the American public.

Focusing an impeachment inquiry on these areas will be frustrating. It will mean that a great deal of maddening conduct—indeed impeachable and even criminal conduct—on the president’s part will necessarily take a back seat. But it is critical to conducting an impeachment process in a defensible and coherent fashion that makes a statement about acceptable presidential behavior. If the House is really moving to consider impeaching the president, it needs to resist the temptation to turn the impeachment process into an indiscriminate expression of any and all grievances. It must ground itself in the provable record. And it needs to make decisions about what message it wants to send about what presidential conduct a coordinate branch will brand as constitutionally intolerable in a person who swears the presidential oath of office.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/so-you-want-impeach-president

Of course, Wittes has written a very thoughtful article and has presented a thorough justification for these five offenses and why Congress should limit itself.

What do you think? Keep it simple and make sure that Trump is impeached? Throw the book at him? Or something in between?

[tavernier]

1. Whatever does the trick.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Let's see what shakes out

Could be things even worse come to light.

[California_Republic]

5. Play the strong card and it may shake out info on the other

[ritapria]

3. Wittes is Right On

[patricia92243]

4. I think just concentrating on the Ukraine situation doesn't give us much wiggle

room. I think obstruction of justice and unconstitutional Declaration of Emergency in order to transfer funds would be about right.

[BigmanPigman]

6. Can they impeach him twice like they did with

Andrew Johnson?

[Poiuyt]

13. Just think, in 2024 we'll be able to impeach Donald Jr.

Just kidding.

[alwaysinasnit]

7. Somewhere in between because betting everything on just one narrow slice, given the Republican

penchant for doing everything possible, legal or otherwise, to retain power, is not prudent IMHO.

[htuttle]

8. If they keep pulling on the Ukraine-related threads, the whole thing is going to unravel

At the rate things have been going, that might be this Friday.

[msongs]

9. follow the evidence nt

[W_HAMILTON]

10. Impeach him now on Ukraine...

...and then impeach his ass again in the lame duck session after the November 2020 elections for all the other crimes that we have uncovered / are bound to uncover between now and then. Impeach now, vote his ass out in November 2020, then impeach his ass again for everything else and stain this aberrant president with being the only one to be impeached multiple times.

[Hoyt]

11. Any charge that can be boiled down to an elevator speech is good. But if a lot of dots have to be

connected, or it takes Rachel Maddow more than 30 seconds to explain a given charge, it's too complicated for white wingers and citizens who don't follow politics closely.

Make Ukraine the center piece, the main charge that any simpleton can understand, and pile on any charges that are simple to understand.

[Talitha]

12. They zeroed in on Capone's tax evasion, and they nailed him for it.

If it gets too long-winded and complicated, you might lose the public.
Sometimes less IS more... keep it simple, and ram it through.

[TomSlick]

14. In trying a lawsuit, my rule is to have only two - maybe three - main points.

Anything more than that and the jury gets lost.

The real point here is the Ukrainian shake-down. There will probably have to be a impeachment count for Trump obstruction of the impeachment inquiry.

That's a case the American people can understand. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

[mysteryowl]

15. So here's the thing, even your email is overwhelming.

The general public has no appetite for complicated lists.

This is working because it is so simple to understand.

[Ahpook]

16. One at a time

Simpleton Uhhmerka can't handle much at once.

I agree with keeping it simple