22 BriefingImpeachment The EconomistSeptember 28th 2019
2 Mr Biden urged Mr Shokin’s sacking. But so
did almost everyone with an interest in
better government in Ukraine. Anti-cor-
ruption organisations claimed that far
from aggressively pursuing Burisma, Mr
Shokin was sabotaging the investigation.
There is no evidence that there was ever, or
should have been, an inquiry aimed at
Hunter Biden himself.
Another factor that makes the case
stand out is that, if what is alleged is true,
Mr Trump attempted to coerce a foreign na-
tion into interfering in an American elec-
tion. This evokes memories of the Russian
connection in the 2016 election. But on that
occasion the president could claim he was
simply the passive recipient of Russian aid.
Here he initiated contact, using the power
of his office for his personal benefit. If Mr
Trump is happy to seek such advantage, Ms
Pelosi’s long-held position that the best
way to punish him is by voting him out be-
gins to look perilous.
The ur-scandal over Russian assistance
in 2016 was hard to keep track of; the
Mueller report, though damning in its way,
was long in coming, long to read and
dauntingly complex. This one is much eas-
ier. As Chrissy Houlahan, one of the au-
thors of the Washington Postop-ed, puts it,
“A sitting president allegedly withheld for-
eign military expenditures from an ally
fighting against a foe of ours in exchange
for information on a possible foe of his in
an upcoming election.” That’s not so hard
to understand.
There is another link to the Russian
scandal; it may have bolstered a sense of
impunity. After completing his report,
Robert Mueller testified to Congress in July.
Some Democrats hoped he might make the
case for impeachment, never bluntly stat-
ed in his report. He didn’t. The next day Mr
Trump phoned Mr Zelensky. If not acting
emboldens Mr Trump, that strengthens the
case for acting.
The six House committees that Ms Pe-
losi has said will operate “under that um-
brella of impeachment inquiry”—Finan-
cial Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence,
Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means—
were already holding hearings into various
allegations against Mr Trump. Over the
next two months they will have to deter-
mine which—if any—of those allegations
add up to a high crime or misdemeanour
that can be impeached.
If impeachment is to work politically
they must come up with accusations not
just of wrongdoing, but of wrongdoing that
goes beyond the public’s expectations.
Consider the impeachment of Bill Clinton
in 1998. Dressed up in terms of obstructing
justice, it really revolved around sexual
malfeasance. The public had been aware
that Mr Clinton, like Mr Trump, had form in
such matters. It thus never got behind the
impeachment. Indeed it punished the im-peachers at the ballot box.
Mr Trump’s deviance from prior norms
raises this bar. During his presidential
campaign it was widely reported that he
stiffed his contractors. He boasted about
minimising the amount he pays in taxes. It
may well be that people priced this infor-
mation into their decision before voting—
perhaps, indeed, under the label “smart op-
erator”. Proceedings turning on such
things would feel like old news if not fake
news, patronising and a bit desperate. If
the inquiries uncover evidence of tax or in-
surance fraud, they would be best advised
to refer it to state or federal prosecutors for
action after Mr Trump leaves office.
Voters also knew that Mr Trump speaks
and acts in racist and sexist ways. This
makes his offensive rhetoric, cruel immi-
gration policies and fast and loose funding
of his border wall a matter for next year’s
voting rather than impeachment. Ditto at-
tacks on the press, harassment of oppo-nents,fondness fordictators. All norm-
breaking, alarming and possibly detrimen-
tal to America’s long-term security and the
health of its democracy. None surprising,
or impeachable; all were evident when he
was a candidate.
What the would-be impeachers need is
something which contravenes not what
Americans expect of a man, either in gen-
eral or in particular, but what they expect of
a president. That was what brought down
Richard Nixon. As the Watergate hearings
made it clear that he had used his power for
personal benefit the public, originally
sceptical of the impeachment process, be-
gan to get behind it.
Mr Trump’s avoidance of scrutiny
would seem to offer a lot of possibilities
here. Mr Mueller’s report detailed his habit
of obstructing investigations. His hostility
to congressional oversight is evinced by his
refusal to surrender his tax returns, his
many lawsuits against congressional com-mittees investigating him and his busi-
nesses, and his ordering staff not to comply
with subpoenas. Neither Mr Clinton nor
Nixon were so reflexive, habitual or ambi-
tious in such matters. Yet they formed part
of the articles of impeachment against
both men.
But at the moment it is the meat of the
Ukraine scandal that seems strongest—a
high-stakes story developing under the
public eye. Impeachment, like much of
politics, is at root an act of persuasion. The
drama of discovery helps. The Watergate
hearings drew in the public in part because
investigators were pulling on strings with-
out knowing where they led; news about
the tape recordings made in the Oval Office
emerged live during televised hearings.
That may not be the case in these hear-
ings. The media landscape is transformed.
And Messrs Trump and Giuliani have pub-
licly admitted much of what they are ac-
cused of. Pulling on strings may reveal
more. Those which lead back to Ukraine
may muddy the appealing clarity; it is not a
feature much found in the country. Though
the younger Mr Biden’s position on the
board was not illegal it does not look great;
that, after all, is why Mr Trump cares about
it. Some strings, though, may be closer to
home. Why, for example, did Dan Coats
cede his job as Director of National Intelli-
gence to Admiral Maguire three days after
the call to Ukraine?
Given that the Senate is likely to let Mr
Trump off, one strategy may be to keep
things in the House for some time. The
lengthy, dramatic Watergate hearings
helped shape public opinion; the scant,
rushed hearings of 1998 made Mr Clinton’s
impeachers look bad. And when the time
comes it may be worth a defeat in the Sen-
ate to force Republicans in swing states to
defend what some voters may have come to
think indefensible. If, instead, some of
those senators find him guilty, they may
fall prey to Mr Trump’s base in primaries. If
impeachment loses the Democrats some
House seats because people don’t like all
the Trump-hating but gains them some
Senate seats it could be a good deal for the
party—as long as the next president is a
Democrat too.
But the impeachers could just as easily
end up egg-faced. Some have already begun
grumbling about the lack of direction. The
fact that the Mueller report had no long-
term effect on the president’s approval is a
sobering precedent. Admittedly in that
case, Mr Barr got to mastermind the spin
surrounding the release, which let him
lessen its impact. This time the weapon
will be in the hands of those who want to
wield it. But with little chance of a mortal
blow, they could leave Mr Trump in place,
triumphant simply for having survived,
just as the presidential campaign starts
heating up. 7Ms Pelosi owns the process