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The first day of public impeachment hearings was good for Republicans and mediocre, at best, for Democrats. That’s far short of what Democrats need — and they know it. To remove a president, they need clear evidence of serious malfeasance, enough to convince average voters and put pressure on Republicans on Capitol Hill. They did not make a strong start.
Hearsay testimony about diplomatic process is not enough, and that’s all they heard on Day One. Trump’s use of irregular back channels may be irritating to career diplomats; it may be a confusing, incoherent way to run foreign policy; but it is perfectly legal. It’s also too deep in the minutiae of public policy to engage the general public. Persuading them is essential if Democrats are to overturn a popular election and remove a president the voters freely chose.
That does not mean President Trump’s call to Ukraine’s President Zelensky was ‘perfect’ as Trump calls it. It was wrong to mention Joe Biden or Hunter Biden and wrong to have delayed the lethal aid Congress voted to give Ukraine.
But ‘wrong’ does not mean impeachable. The Trump phone call falls short of impeachment for three reasons:
- The aid was never explicitly tied to a clear-cut demand in the Trump-Zelensky call;
- Zelensky never did what Trump hoped for; indeed President Zelensky probably did not know about the delay in aid disbursements until several weeks after the phone call; and
- Ukraine actually received all the aid after a brief delay, even though they did not act on Trump’s request.
