As I sat having my coffee this morning, I looked at the Federal Criminal Code book sitting on my kitchen table (don’t ask). It’s 2000 pages of dense, often-confusing, legal jargon setting out thousands and thousands of federal crimes. How does this book relate to impeachment? 
In order to impeach Trump, we need not ask, “Did Trump commit a crime? Is there some criminal law in this big, blue book that we can prove Trump broke, some statute he violated?“ This precise question is what bogged us down in the wake of the Mueller report.
It’s understandable that people would see the phrase in the Constitution, “high crimes and misdemeanors” and conclude that, in order to be impeached, Trump literally must violate one of the laws in this ugly blue Federal Code book. Not so, here’s why:
The Federalist Papers shed considerable light on this question. Founding father Alexander Hamilton instructed that an impeachable offense involves, “the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Let’s take a hypothetical:
Let’s assume that after being elected, the president quickly grew weary of governing. So all-day, every-day, the president lounged in his private quarters, watching TV. He refused to turn his attention to legislation that was sent to him for signature or veto.
He refused to attend state functions, hold press conferences, meet w/other world leaders of even discuss the business of government. He wouldn’t engage w/his military commanders, his law enforcement leaders or his intelligence community advisors on matters of national security.
To sum it up, he simply refused to govern. Now, you can spend days going through the big, blue Federal Code book looking for the crime of “presidential sloth”, but you won’t find it. So under the above scenario, the president has committed no crime.
But he PLAINLY has violated the public trust by abdicating his responsibility to govern, and for that, he can and should be impeached. So, let’s be clear, to be impeached, a president need not commit one of the crimes on today’s criminal code books. Indeed,
This big, blue Federal Code book did not even exist at the time of the drafting of the constitution. Today’s crimes were not even codified at the time. So it makes absolutely no sense to assert that, for impeachment to move forward, a president would have to
violate a criminal law (one in the big, blue book) that did not even exist at the time “high crimes and misdemeanors” was adopted as the impeachment standard! No, it’s all about an abuse of the public trust, a misuse of one’s power or office.
You know what IS an abuse of power and a misuse of office? Holding hostage $ allocated by Congress to support another country - Ukraine- in defending itself against illegal Russian aggression and saying, ‘I’ll give you this money ONLY IF you do a favor for me,
a favor that involves knocking down my political opponent.’ THAT is an abuse of power and of public office. It’s also an abuse of Congressional will (using Congressionally-allocated funds for your own re-election purposes), it’s an abuse of the public trust and
it’s an affront to the American people. Does it technically violate some law in the big, blue book? THAT. DOESN’T. MATTER. It plainly constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor as the constitution contemplated. And it is impeachable.
