The robust and credible testimony of two senior US diplomats about the shadowy irregular diplomacy aimed at coercing Ukraine to investigate Donald Trump’s rival Joe Biden has put a spring in the step of Democrats.
They believe they have the president where they want him, exposing to the world a tawdry and thuggish attempt to pressure a vulnerable ally to help a US president’s re-election chances.
But Democrats run a grave risk of winning this battle and losing the war. Indeed, American politics is already a long-term loser from this impeachment spectacle and the Democrats share more blame for this than the Republicans.
READ MORE: Trump ‘put Biden ahead of Ukraine’ | Second diplomat ‘overheard Trump phone call’ | Impeachment: Credible, detailed and damaging |
Even before these public hearings are completed, we now know enough of this story to distil the key points.
Trump asked Ukraine to publicly investigate the activities of Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine — an investigation which would have hurt Biden simply by the fact of it being announced.
A shadowy group comprising US diplomats Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani worked on behalf of the president to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
Some of them, claiming to be following Trump’s wishes, linked the provision of US military aid to Ukraine to that country announcing a public investigation by Ukraine.
In a nutshell, that is the case against Trump. It reveals poor judgment and bad behaviour and it is consistent with other aspects of Trump’s presidency where he does not know, or wilfully ignores, appropriate boundaries of presidential conduct.
Voters would be entitled, if they felt strongly enough about it, to punish Trump at the ballot box next year.
But is it really a ‘crime’ worthy of dragging America through another impeachment saga, for almost certainly zero outcome given that the Republican-controlled Senate shows no sign of supporting this quest by the Democrat-controlled house?
When Andrew Johnson became the first president to be impeached in 1868 it was another 105 years before another president, Richard Nixon, faced impeachment proceedings. Nixon’s crimes were certainly impeachable and he fled office before Congress could bang their gavel and declare him guilty.
But since then we have seen two more impeachment sagas, Bill Clinton and now Trump, both for much less odious behaviour than that of Nixon.
The danger here is that the Democrats now are committing the same mistake that Republicans did against Clinton in the 1990s. They are invoking impeachment for bad behaviour rather than for the catastrophic crimes that the founding fathers intended impeachment to be used for.
Impeachment becoming ‘routine political weapon’
The precedent being set with Trump is a standard that could potentially see every second president tarred with impeachment.
As the Wall St Journal put it ‘on the evidence and the process to date, they are turning impeachment into a routine political weapon, and future Presidents of both parties will regret it.’
So far, Americans are divided on the impeachment process with support divided largely along party lines. It could easily rebound and hurt the Democrats or it could hurt Trump or, more likely, it will maintain the status quo and further entrench the polarised nature of US politics.
None of this is good for the country and if nothing meaningful comes of it, voters would be entitled to ask why they were dragged through this spectacle.
The most appropriate test of how voters view Trump’s Ukraine problem is to let them decide at the ballot box next year. That’s what elections are for.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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