[Cardfan1]

What high crime or misdemeanor do you believe President Trump has committed? From my more objective perspective, having been the President's most vocal critic on BGR, the biggest abuse of power (which is not, IMO, constitutionally impeachable offense) has been exercised by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The House's impeachment of a sitting president, in the absence of an allegation of any high crime or misdemeanor, is the equivalent of an unfounded frivolous civil lawsuit.

The House had the opportunity to subpoena documents and testimony from Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, or any other individual whom they believed might provide evidence of the commission of a high crime or misdemeanor, but they declined to do so.

There is no provision in the Constitution to allow Articles of Impeachment to be amended or corrected during the Senate trial. The House had no intention of removing Donald Trump from office. Their goal was to weaken him politically to allow one Democrats' extremely weak candidates to win the 2020 presidential election.

The bottom line is Democrats began working to overturn the results of the 2016 election before Donald Trump took the oath of office.

Elections have consequences and rejecting the results of fair elections is as bad as rigging the results of an election. Democrats did both in 2016. Just ask Bernie Sanders whether Hillary Clinton won her party's nomination in a fair process.

IMHO the founding fathers' interpretation of "high crime or misdemeanor" is a catch-all that basically means the government official is abusing public trust. We could probably debate this one until the cows come home, but if we look at the past impeachments they haven't always been based in criminal acts affecting the office. Clinton broke the law, but it didn't have anything to do with his presidency. Nixon's articles were not written up like he had broken the law, (which he had) but he was charged with obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress all crimes against his oath.
Heck, Johnson's impeachment was based on his firing of people in the executive branch. In hindsight, looks like an extreme overreach by Congress when they passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867 to keep Johnson from putting in bureaucrats that supported his view of Reconstruction.
Then there are the impeachment of judges which run the gambit.
When it comes down to it,as Gerald Ford said, “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

The president instigated a scheme of coercion/bribery using taxpayer money to solicit information from a foreign nation that would assist him in the upcoming election. All kinds of dirty there, and to be honest, probably a few election laws broken; however, let's remember the president is not going to jail, for now, he will just lose his job.

There is no provision in the Constitution for/or against amending the articles of impeachment, so if the Senate chooses to dismiss they are following the Constitution, if they choose to tack on Treason due to some bombshell allegation also following the Constitution. House has sole power. Senate has sole power.

I think the House should have subpoenaed it all back in October if they really wanted to get to the truth, and if their goal was to smear Trump with the process they would have killed two birds with one stone. Maybe they know more than I know, but if the last election tells us anything, corruption drags at a candidate. HRC's emails rose from the dead about 3 times to hurt her. If the goal is to destroy Trump's chances the best thing would be a lingering stink of corruption, and the longer he stonewalled on the release of documents the longer the stink would be around.

The President has served 3 years. We are passed the overturning of an election argument. In the most unlikely occurrence of his removal the VP takes over who won the same election Trump did.

In all honesty, he handed his own head on a silver platter. These are all his actions. The House was able to put this together while being absolutely stonewalled by the president. The case tends to get stronger by the day with other actors in the Trump scandal beginning to spill the beans.

I thought political parties made their own rules on primaries. I mean didn't Republicans cancel some state primaries across the nation this year. Democrats have done that in the past.

It's a crafty argument against Democrats, but both parties are always working to get the opposing party out. I doubt there has been any opposing House Majority in history that would have hesitated to start the impeachment process if they felt they could get by with it. Trump's polarizing style insured this House could get support even if they didn't have a case, but they have one, which may be why we are seeing independents start to support removal in recent polls.

I guess this is a different argument and off topic, but you mentioned the weakness of Dem candidates, which I agree with. Biden struggles to create a movement and he voted for the Iraq War. Sanders has created a movement, but is labeled a Socialist by those that aren't in the movement. I don't see the others as serious candidates at this time. These two would struggle to beat any Republican or Democrat in the past 30 years, but on the flipside they are also running against a weak candidate. The President has a base and that is it. Since 2016 he hasn't done much to add to his base, so we have an entire group of people who are maybe not supportive of Democrats policies, but are voting for somebody that isn't Trump. I see that as similar to 2016 when some of the same people voted Not Hillary.