This piece of mine @slate from Sept 27 held up pretty well /1
The case for a lighting strike impeachment tightly focused on the Ukraine scandal. slate.com/news-and-polit… via @slate
The case for a lighting strike impeachment tightly focused on the Ukraine scandal. slate.com/news-and-polit… via @slate
This was my key point: /2 
Impeachment was justified so close to the election precisely because Trump's actions threaten to interfere with the election: /3
The key arguments from the left against impeachment now are all strategic, not substantive. I don't know anyone on the left claiming Trump did not abuse his power in what he did with Ukraine. Instead question is timing or effect of a likely Senate acquittal /4
On strategy and timing, Democrats can keep investigating with an eye toward another impeachment, even in a Trump second term. But there would not be the political will to string this out to the fall without a vote now, and there would be a loss of momentum /5
And in terms of the risk of a likely Senate acquittal:doing nothing would be worse. If Trump could get away with this obstruction and attempted 2020 election interference without any Democratic pushback, his behavior would worsen. /6
The @slate piece suggested perhaps a Senate trial would put swing state R Senators in a tough spot. I now doubt that, given how no Rs in the House have crossed the dividing line. Whether these Rs will pay a price (or swing state Ds will pay for voting for impeachment) is big ? /7
The bottom line, as I've said before, is that it is hard to know the political fallout of an impeachment followed by an acquittal. So rather than focus on the politics, House and Senate should do what is right in terms of curbing abuse of power and obstruction 8/8
