Both Art. I and Art. II are indeed “high crimes and misdemeanors” as has been determined by the House pursuant to Art. II, Sev IV of the U.S. Constitution.
The House has the “sole power of impeachment” and these deflections to the U.S. Code are meaningless.
The Senate has the responsibility of holding a fair trial when the President is impeached. And they didn’t.
They basically re-read the Charges, brought in some hired gun lawyers to hold the floor and muddy the waters, called no witnesses, patted themselves on the back and went home.
Trump meanwhile watched from home and tweeted all about it (waiving any executive privilege claims that were already quite tenuous to begin with), and even held a premature victory-lap rally in New Jersey, but dared not show his face in the Senate.
This all makes the Clinton impeachment look like a model of decorum and sanity.
If you’d called the witnesses and acquitted Trump anyway as you had the numbers to do, you might have even come out ahead.
But as it stands this is going down as one of the biggest cover-ups in U.S. history. And when the information all comes out later, as it inevitably will? Have fun owning it.
