Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/206

 investigation. That the Majority included references to the Russia collusion narrative in these Articles of Impeachment illuminates the Majority's disregard for history, trivializes impeachment, and demonstrates an inability by the Majority to accept the inconvenient conclusions of those investigations-which, of course, the Majority previously lauded. It should be noted that the misconduct uncovered by the Department of Justice Inspector General largely occurred during President Obama's administration. As such, there is no basis to suspect President Trump's administration would allow the same election year abuses seen in 2016which included the wiretapping of then-candidate Trump's campaign worker.

Second, there was no invitation by President Trump for Ukraine to "intervene" in the 2020 election. By the Majority's standard, any action taken by any president that may affect an election is itself "intervention" in that election. Assuredly, every elected official eligible for reelection gives thought to how their actions will improve or harm their future campaign. Asking the president of Ukraine to "look into" potential corruption involving Hunter Biden's employment at a notoriously corrupt company in Ukraine is not "corrupting democratic elections." Any request, however remote, that might benefit a politician politically is not an invitation to corrupt an election. To portray the President's request as corrupting the 2020 election is disingenuous, at best. As explained further below, the President did not ask for false information, and the fact that a key player in a corrupt Ukrainian company is the son of a politician does not transform a legitimate question into election interference.

Finally, the Majority argues that it must act now to prevent an ongoing "crime spree". This is a spurious charge since the Articles of Impeachment do not allege any crimes, past or present. The Majority's argument that it must impeach the President to prevent future crimes, on the basis of past crimes not alleged in the Articles, is difficult to comprehend. Though impeachment is conceived of as prophylactic, the Majority would wield it on prognostication alone. The Majority must point to a high crime or other impeachable offense before claiming it is acting to protect future generations. It has completely failed to do so, instead relying on politically-motivated innuendo.

2.Prior Presidential Impeachments Were All Based on Criminality

The Majority's Articles of Impeachment are unprecedented in American history because they are not based on criminality, as were all prior presidential impeachments. President Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act. The House Judiciary Committee approved Articles of Impeachment against President Nixon based on extensive and proven criminal conduct. As Professor Turley explained:

The allegations began with a felony crime of burglary and swept to encompass an array of other crimes involving political slush funds, payments of hush money, maintenance of an enemies list, directing tax audits of critics, witness intimidation, multiple instances of perjury, and even an alleged kidnapping. Ultimately, there were nearly 70 officials charged and four dozen of them found guilty. Nixon was also named as an unindicted 10