For the Record: I was into impeachment before it went mainstream

Photo via Pasta Factory, Cape Town.

A constant theme on the Republican side of the impeachment debate was the idea that "Democrats have been wanting to impeach this president since the day he took office," as if to say the particular matter of the Ukraine case was just an excuse—the spaghetti strand that clung to the wall.

Of course it's projection, as my old friend Mikey says, because it's exactly what they'd been planning themselves  (see Steve M for lots of detail):

What I know is, weeks BEFORE the election, when it seemed a lock for HRC, I’d heard of R’s saying they’d be drafting Articles on her literally before she was even sworn in.

For what??
Doesn’t matter. Because HER.

So, any Rs b¡tching now, can Shut right TFU & sit TF down. 😡

— Not My Secret Twîtter Account (@mikeybee33) December 19, 2019

Nevertheless there's some truth to the suggestion that we'd have taken anything that worked, some of us: the Zelenskyy bribery case being the one that somehow grabbed the attention of those 30 "moderate" congressional Democrats and the big newspapers—though not to the corollary implication that Trump's not guilty in the others, from the corrupt use of the inauguration fund and the campaign finance violations for which Michael Cohen is in jail through all the bank fraud and tax fraud that may apply and the many sexual assault charges and the foreign and domestic emoluments to the big cases of the president bending foreign and national security policy for the personal benefits he may have received or be receiving from the leaderships of countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and above all Russia.

I was worried about this problem in the "marketing" of the narrow impeachment case from the start, that it would give Republicans a chance to insinuate that the Ukraine shakedown must be the only bad thing Trump had ever done as president, since it was the only bad thing Democrats had been able to find, and cast doubt on whether it was really so bad, because they'd be portraying it in isolation, rather than the context of Trump's all-round thug style of foreign policy. Indeed that's how the Republicans have been arguing, and yesterday they did it all day long, until I was moved to emit the following thread:

The day before inauguration we heard that Trump had settled his class action suit filed by 7,000 former Trump University students who said he'd defrauded them with his bogus university with a $25 million payment. That's when I decided impeachment for sure https://t.co/ALsw8hN2nd

— Per Aspera ad Yastra (@Yastreblyansky) December 19, 2019

And there were lots of possibilities for what kinds of crimes he might be committing. For instance, he had a lease on a fancy DC hotel on federal property that said explicitly no elected official could legally hold it. He was elected and he was holding it! https://t.co/OhjffLDXZK pic.twitter.com/xCfSmoafte

— Per Aspera ad Yastra (@Yastreblyansky) December 19, 2019

It was held by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, an entity of which he was the sole owner and from which he could withdraw money any time he wanted, so that wasn't the same thing at all!

— Per Aspera ad Yastra (@Yastreblyansky) December 19, 2019

Not that we'd ever know one way or another, because, for the first time in over 40 years, Americans had no way of examining the president's finances; Trump didn't want us to have one, and can't be compelled. There's no constitutional way to enforce the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

— Per Aspera ad Yastra (@Yastreblyansky) December 19, 2019

and talk of removing sanctions on Russia--on the other, mounting rumors of Russian intelligence involvement in the election that had taken Trump to the presidency, coming to a head two weeks before Inauguration when some of them were confirmed by the DNI https://t.co/Psum2DT1qH pic.twitter.com/Lr5ovi93QW

— Per Aspera ad Yastra (@Yastreblyansky) December 19, 2019

And could he be getting payments connected to the Russian government through its famous money laundering operations in the famous money laundering environment of the Manhattan condo market? Who knew? His finances were totally opaque!

— Per Aspera ad Yastra (@Yastreblyansky) December 19, 2019

Nothing that's happened since then (including the Mueller report if you read into it with any care) has given me a reason to change my mind. That one Ukraine case is a pretty small slice of the whole thing.

/fin

— Per Aspera ad Yastra (@Yastreblyansky) December 19, 2019