He’s not the only person making this sort of argument. So let’s discuss what’s wrong with that idea. washingtonpost.com/opinions/parti…
*A lot* happened in the first month of the Trump presidency, including the Muslim ban, that could explain those polls.
No, at least not as a legal matter.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
It’s not clear
But we probably care the constitutional tests courts have used (rather than statutory tests). And, to the extent impeachment in the House is like an indictment, we should look at tests for prosecutors
Not much.
Unless the defendant can show that the prosecutor acted out of racism or to punish the defendant for exercising constitutional rights, most judges won’t care.
Here's an overview of those cases from an article on the topic in @PennLRev
Here, I suppose reasonable people could differ about whether this is serious misconduct by Trump (tho Olsen seems to admit that it is)
Even so, abuse of power was one of the Nixon articles of impeachment, and one could read some of the Johnson articles to be abuses of power
Personally, I'd like to see more executive officials testifying about what happened when.
But Trump's own words both on the call with Zelensky and on several occasions since then make it hard to say that the evidence here is weak.
That's an interesting question. Because the sort of animosity that courts care about is *personal* animosity--like the defendant was having an affair with the prosecutors' spouse--not ill will based on suspected crimes
I have no idea whether it will prove politically convincing. It certainly seems to be lurking in the background of many GOP statements against impeachment.
But as a legal matter, it's a pretty weak argument. /end