Call It What It Is: Bribery
Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution says, “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Right now, President Trump has largely avoided calls for impeachment on the grounds of bribery with lawmakers and the media, using the term ‘quid pro quo,’ which is a Latin phrase meaning, “something for something.”
This is a fine and clear understanding of the evidence that has been brought up before Congress to describe his actions on the basis of abuse of power and explicit corruption.
The problem is, it is harder to convince people of this because Trump never got what he was seeking, a public announcement from Ukraine that they would investigate the President’s political rival.
When looking closer at the laws that help prevent our public officials from acting in a corrupt and self-interested manner, the details start to paint a grim picture for President Trump. Under the federal bribery statute, it merely “requires the government to prove that the defendants acted with corrupt intent to engage in a quid pro quo, that is, ‘a specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act.’”
The intent is all that is needed because “The statute criminalizes ‘offer[ing]’ or ‘promis[ing]’ a bribe as well as ‘demand[ing]’ or ‘seek[ing]’ a bribe.” Any public official prosecuted for these charges can be imprisoned for up to fifteen years.
With all that said, it is still very unlikely that Trump will be removed from office by a two-thirds majority vote in the senate. Several GOP senators have publicly stated that they will not be tuning in for the public impeachment testimonies and have dismissed the facts by painting the inquiry as a partisan attack on a duly elected president.
Some senators like Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul have gone as far to suggest a vote to dismiss any articles of impeachment against Trump, in order to avoid a senate hearing.
As we move on to the second phase of the impeachment inquiry, several key witnesses are set to participate in public hearings. We should expect to see a shift in the language used by Democrats to describe President Trump’s actions as bribery and extortion of a foreign government. After the first public testimonies by Amb. William Taylor and top State Department official, George Kent, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that, “The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery.”
Not only does this language make it easier to make a case against the president by using direct wording from our Constitution, it makes it easier on the millions of Americans following the news from home to wrap their heads around English words that they do not have to look up on the internet.
One senior political advisor expects questions to be framed like this: Was there an attempt by Trump to exact a bribery payment from Ukraine? Was Trump holding congressionally appropriated, tax-payer-funded foreign aid hostage? Was he conditioning its release on a public statement from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that his country would open an investigation into Trump's chief political rival? The answer to all of these questions would certainly be, yes.
The question to follow would be: Are these impeachable offenses? Well, the Constitution would say, yes and it even goes further to suggest that the president shall be removed from office on impeachment for these specific crimes.
Although evidence and facts that corroborate allegations of impeachable offenses by our president continue to mount by the day, the Democrats still have a chance to bungle this. They must avoid falling victim to unsubstantiated partisan attacks by Republican lawmakers and the Right-wing media by sticking to the overwhelming body of evidence that points to the fact that President Trump and many of his associates are criminals.
To do this, Democrats must present the facts in a clear and precise manner that is easily digestible for the average American. The convenient aspect about the public hearings is that it will give the Democrats a chance to do exactly this.
It is imperative to show that this inquiry is about protecting our democracy in an open and fair process, not a sham, partisan, political ploy. If they can do this, Republican Senators may have no choice but to abandon the face and leader of the Republican party, or risk losing their own seats in an impending Blue Wave.