House Democrats Considered 10 Impeachment Articles Before Narrowing Their Case Against Trump

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee staff initially drew up 10 articles of impeachment against President Trump last year, alleging a wide range of high crimes and misdemeanors before the case was whittled down to his interactions with Ukraine, according to a book to be published next week.

The staff members, working for Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the committee chairman, drafted a sweeping indictment of Mr. Trump charging him with, among other things, obstructing the Russia investigation, authorizing hush money for women to cover up sexual affairs, illegally diverting money to his border wall and profiting personally from his office.

In the end, House Democratic leaders privately rejected prosecuting the president for those other actions, according to the book, calculating that such an expansive set of accusations would cost them votes even among Democrats by seeming to go too far and thus potentially sink the whole impeachment effort. The internal debate came down to whether to include a third article claiming obstruction of the special counsel investigation but Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed it.

The decision to pursue a narrower case has long posed one of the most perplexing what-if counterfactuals of the entire impeachment and trial of Mr. Trump: What would have happened if House Democrats had thrown everything they had against the president rather than stick to just his campaign to pressure Ukraine to incriminate his Democratic rivals? Would a broader case have been more compelling as some Democrats argued or be viewed as overreach as the leaders of the impeachment drive concluded?

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/us/politics/trump-impeachment.html

[in2herbs]

1. I wonder how many, if any, articles of impeachment they are considering against Barr. nt

[unblock]

2. the suggestion that the vote would have been different with more charges is complete sophistry

please, as if any of the republicans carefully considered the actual charges and the actual facts and actually made an objective determination that he should not be convicted of the charges presented, but had the house brought other charges, they would have convicted.

one seriously has to have zero clue about senate republicans to think they'd have reacted differently to additional charges.

[in2herbs]

3. Agree. nt

[Hugin]

4. Since the whole impeachment was a political rather than a legal move...

As was pointed out several times by Speaker Pelosi herself.

It's my opinion that more charges would have led to more diverse dirt being spilled into the court of public opinion. Which, is politics and not law. That's exactly how the Republicans would and have been playing it for decades.

You point out, if the final result of not removing the petulant man-child was already baked in, why not throw the whole plate of spaghetti at the festering pimple? He and his pet private Attorney General wouldn't have been as successful at keeping control of the narrative.

The way it turned out, yes, there was an impeachment. But, on a single proven charge, who cares? They should've handed him the whole ball of wax so it was out there for all to see.

[unblock]

5. It would have only helped republicans

They would have harped on whichever single charge they felt could be spun as the weakest and tarred the whole thing as dubious and partisan.

And the longer it dragged on, the more they could lol u obstructionists.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

8. Well, they did that anyway (tarred the whole thing as dubious and partisan) nt

[unblock]

11. yes but the more and weaker charges we put in, the more believable that claim becomes

[KPN]

10. Didn't they do that anyway? Given the COVID thing, your point of dragging it on is legit. We would

have been blamed for the Trump virus by way of "Dems are distracting the administration from focusing on battling the pandemic". By happenstance, we are fortunate in that regard.

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. How about impeaching him for the dozen or so crimes

he committed since then?

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

7. Ill never understand why they didnt just hit him with every single conceivable

instance of impropriety, malfeasance, criminal offense (eg paying off porn star etc.), corruption, and just plain unfitness for office. Now THAT would have been riveting must-see TV.

[Polybius]

12. I don't think you can be impeached for something you did before you were elected President

He paid the porn star before November 8, 2016.

[Marthe48]

9. They could charge him with 100 crimes

and impeach him for each one. Hell, they could do a rolling list of the crimes he commits hourly, and the repukes in the senate would give him a pass every time.