It’s finally happening. After months of dallying, House Democrats are getting serious about impeaching President Trump. He will not be convicted by the obsequious Republican Senate, but impeachment would make him only the third president in history tarred with this brush. 

Boasting that impeachment would help him politically, Trump claimed he welcomed it. 

Democrats face a Hobson’s choice. If they impeach him, they may put at risk some House Democrats who won seats in districts in districts carried by Trump. And impeachment will surely fire up Trump’s base. But if House Democrats don’t impeach, they will be objects of ridicule for tough talk and no action, reinforcing their reputation as weak and ineffective.

The case for impeachment is getting ever stronger. And it’s not certain that Democrats will be net losers through impeaching Trump. It can be argued that it is better for the Democrats to be decisive, focused, and lose than to be cowed by Trump and the right-wing echo chamber. Furthermore, Trump has clearly committed enough impeachable offenses and violated enough presidential norms that House Democrats simply must do what is ethically and constitutionally correct — impeach the president. 

Clinton was impeached for simply lying about sex and trying to cover it up. That is the least of Trump’s transgressions. As the increasingly more sordid, unpresidential and illegal actions of the Trump Administration continue, Republicans will also be under pressure. Will they continue to tolerate Trump’s wrongdoings that would never be tolerated if done by a Democrat? They will be judged, first by the voters, then by history. 

Trump continues to insist that the Mueller investigation was a giant hoax. This so-called “witch hunt” resulted in 34 individuals and three companies indicted, eight of whom pleaded guilty or were convicted of felonies, including five Trump associates and campaign officials. Although Trump was found not to have directly conspired or coordinated with Russia, he clearly tried to obstruct justice, but was not indicted because he held the office of president.

Thanks in large measure to Attorney General Barr’s convoluted rollout of the Mueller Report, Trump got off scot-free, and managed to convince a substantial minority of the American public that the investigation itself was merely an attempted coup.

Each illegal and unpresidential action that Trump gets away with emboldens him for something even more outrageous and/or illegal. From the beginning of Trump’s campaign, it was evident that he did not understand how a democracy with three co-equal branches of government was designed to function. 

When the founders were writing the Constitution, this concept of a democratic republic was an experiment. From benefit of hindsight of the world’s most powerful nation, it may seem ridiculous that this bold experiment might fail. But at the time, success of this fledgling nation was not assured. The Founding Fathers realized that the European colonial powers, especially England and France, were not yet through with them. The subsequent War of 1812 resulting in the British invasion of the American capitol proved their fears and precautions were well-founded.

It was because of this continuing foreign threat that the founders stipulated that any foreign assistance whatsoever in American elections be constitutionally prohibited. They wanted to prevent a “French election,” or a “British election.” It was to be strictly foreign hands off of American elections with no exceptions. 

American intelligence agencies clearly established that there was Russian meddling in the election of 2016. Even though Trump discredited, and attempted to obstruct, the Mueller investigation, he was not found guilty of personal direct involvement. He was let off the hook — even though he famously publicly asked Russia to “find Hillary’s emails.” Though not exonerated, neither was he indicted for obstruction of justice — because he is president.

Emboldened by once again getting away with behavior that would surely have resulted in impeachment, and probable conviction, of a Democrat, Trump carried it a step further. He withheld congressionally appropriated funds intended for military aid to Ukraine to counter Russia-backed insurgents. During the now-infamous phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he promised additional funds for anti-tank weapons if Zelensky would investigate and throw dirt on Trump’s potential 2020 presidential rival, Joe Biden. Although it is incredible that anyone could read the summary of the conversation as anything other than a quid pro quo, it is unconstitutional to merely seek foreign assistance to affect an American election.

With Trump clearly seeking foreign assistance for personal political purposes, even House Democrats that were reluctant to push for impeachment began to see this action as so egregious and unconstitutional that they had no choice but to move toward impeachment.

With that impending action, Trump began to panic. As frequently occurs when someone stands up to bullies, they fold. Trump, displaying his customary ignorance, “demanded” that congress hold a formal vote. It’s not the president who sets the rules on this matter. A formal vote to impose articles of impeachment is will come soon enough. 

The plot soon thickened. Enter Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who received vast sums of money from a foreign entity, and, curiously, Gordon Sondland, the Ambassador to the EU, pressuring Zelensky to investigate Biden and the out-of-nowhere conspiracy theory that it was actually Ukraine colluding with Hillary on the 2016 election. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry went to Ukraine at Trump’s behest and is now — sometimes — blamed by Trump for the infamous phone call.

Two of Giuliani’s associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested at the airport with one-way tickets out of the country. They are under investigation for funneling illegal contributions to a Republican congressman whose help they sought to sack Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch; she soon was indeed sacked. She had been objecting to nefarious activities by Giuliani’s associates to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Hunter Biden. Giuliani is under investigation for illegal lobbying. 

There is much more here than the “lying about sex” that Republicans considered grounds for impeaching President Clinton.

Next week: Republicans continue to fall in line.

— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.