1/ There is no evidence that Trump leveraged aid for investigations. As his defense team pointed out today, you have to ignore facts and take Democrat mind reading as fact in order to make the case Democrats are charging.
2/ I wrote most of an article last week and then didn’t publish it. But the key point was that the Clinton impeachment is the wrong precedent to reflect on. The better precedent is the non-impeachment of Reagan during the Iran Contra affair.
3/ In Iran Contra there were actual laws broken and those laws were clearly broken in pursuit of the President’s policy desires. People were actually indicted and convicted. The Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate and still they didn’t impeach. Why?
4/ The Democrats didn’t impeach Reagan because even though everyone knew that Reagan knew, there was no evidence he knew or that he ordered the actions. They weren’t willing to attempt to remove the duly elected President on an assumption.
5/ That is the important standard. Anything else would result in the perpetual impeachment of every future President whenever the opposing party controls the House. You need evidence not just of impeachable acts, you need evidence the President committed them.
6/ In this case there’s no crime AND no evidence that Trump ever linked the aid to investigations. The Democrats assume facts not in evidence then they argue if you force the President’s inner circle to testify the facts they lack will be revealed. It’s a fishing expedition.
7/ Impeachment as a search warrant is a dangerous precedent. It actually incentivizes the House to impeach and forever alters the balance of power.
That is the important constitutional argument to put before the American people. One that @AlanDersh is likely to make.
/end
That is the important constitutional argument to put before the American people. One that @AlanDersh is likely to make.
/end
@threadreaderapp please unroll
