Audio: Trump v. Vance - 2d circuit

2d Circuit judges Chin and Consovoy

Trump v. Vance - background - GWC
Consent to stay enforcement of the order

The oral argument in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

TPM - The Logical Endpoint of Trump's Immunity Argument

CSPAN Audio:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?465172-1/circuit-hears-oral-argument-president-trumps-tax-returns-audio-only
Live blogging by Jed Shugerman
Live blogging by 
Adam Klasfeld @courthousenews

Twitter thread post-argument: Legal Nerd vs. DavidRLurie

Trump tax fight before Second Circuit Wednesday

When Donald Trump learned that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.  subpoenaed his financial records he did not challenge the subpoena in the New York courts.  He filed a federal civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 - the post Civil War law under which Brown v, Board of Education and suits to enjoin or compensate for civil rights violations are brought.  On Wednesday, October 23 the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York will hear oral argument on Trump’s effort to stay the decision issued by Victor Marrero, a federal District Judge allowing the state subpoena to be enforced against the Mazars accounting firm which prepares Trump’s tax returns.

Trump complains that he is the victim of a bad faith grand jury proceeding intended to obtain his financial records for political purposes - not to enforce any law.  He sued personally, describing himself as  both President and as the sole beneficiary and ultimate owner of a string of Trump trusts and companies. His private lawyers' brief argues his rights are not merely personal but also that the subpoena interferes with his presidential duties.  The case therefore belongs in federal court.  The traditional factors which lead federal courts not to interfere with state criminal proceedings are inapplicable the Trump lawyers assert because a federal officer’s rights should be determined by a federal court, not risked at the hands of a state court. 

Trump must overcome the holding by the Supreme Court  in Clinton v. Jones (1997).  In a civil action by Paula Jones who alleged sexual misconduct by Bill Clinton before he took office, Justice John Paul Stevens  explained that the President, like other officials, is subject to the same laws that apply to all citizens.  No case had been found in which an official was granted immunity from suit for his unofficial acts, Justice Stevens noted.  The rationale for official immunity is inapplicable, he explained, where only personal, private conduct by a President is at issue. The Court also rejected the argument that, unless immunity is available, the threat of judicial interference with the Executive Branch would violate separation of powers.

Vance, the New York  District Attorney has submitted a sealed declaration describing the scope and basis for the investigatory subpoena to Mazars - the Trump accountants (which itself takes no position).  Vance writes “The records relate to business and financial matters unrelated to any official acts of the President of the United States, and are primarily from the time-period before Appellant [Trump] assumed that office”.

 The Mahattan prosecutor  argues that because “[i]n the ordinary course, ‘a state proceeding provides an adequate forum for the vindication of federal constitutional rights.’..  The burden rests with Appellant [Trump]  to show “that state procedural law barred presentation of [its] claims.” Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 481 U.S. 1, 14 (1987)... “Under Younger [v. Harris (1972)] . . . [we] need not establish that state law definitively permits the interposition of constitutional claims.”   

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution declares that federal law is supreme and that  “The Judges in every State shall be bound thereby”.  Federal courts therefore  must presume that state judges will protect constitutional rights with the same vigor as would any federal judge.  The Supreme Court so found when in the 1967 case Walker v. Birmingham it upheld the jailing of Martin Luther King for defying an ex parte Alabama court order not to march on Good Friday 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama.  The civil rights leaders should have appealed to the Alabama courts rather than march on Good Friday defying a court order issued without notice to them, according to the decision written by the conservative  Justice Potter Stewart.

Vance therefore soundly relies on District Judge Victor Marrero’s conclusion that the 1982 Supreme Court decision in  Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar directs federal courts to allow state court proceedings to move forward when "( 1) there is a pending state proceeding , ( 2 ) that implicates an important state interest, and ( 3 ) the state proceeding affords the federal plaintiff an adequate opportunity for judicial review of his or her federal constitutional claims."  All three conditions prevail here.  Enforcement of tax laws and punishing financial crimes are surely important matters, and the New York Courts surely can cope with a federal constitutional challenge.

William Barr’s  Department of Justice has intervened as amicus curiae on Trump’s behalf.  The DOJ relies on  the supremacy of the President as a federal officer.  That argument  would be compelling if the New York investigation  involved offenses touching on the Office for which the House of Representatives has “sole  Power of impeachment” under Article 1 of the Constitution.  But it does not.  It is Trump’s pre-Presidential conduct that is at issue.  Trump and the Department of Justice can expect to be hard pressed to persuade the Circuit panel that Vance’s criminal investigation is in bad faith - that the federal interest preempts the State’s in enforcing its general criminal law against a man whose refusal to disclose his tax returns and  already public financial record provides many reasons to suspect that he has been a dishonest actor.

- GWC

Just me and the boys - Nancy Pelosi's excellent adventure

Just Nancy and the boys - in the Cabinet Room

The President’s Tax Returns - the Rao dissent.

The President's tax returns sought by a subpoena of the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives must be turned over according to the majority of a three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals in Trump v. Mazars. Forever ago in June I warned of the dangers of a monarchical presidency because - seeking to quash a House of Representatives subpoena to his accountants for his tax returns to the - Trump's DOJ  had argued Congress lacks the power to subject him to conflict of interest laws.  
But Neomi Rao, a former Clarence Thomas law clerk newly appointed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has avoided such a drastic stance.  In her dissent in Trump v. Mazars and House Oversight Committee Rao deploys "separation of powers".  

But the powers she separates are those of Congress - not the coordinate branches of government.  Her motivated reasoning leads to the lawyer's sin of placing syntax over context.  Article I of the Constitution declares "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which Shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives." And it declares "The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment."   But powers do not end like sentences.  The system is an organism, not a sequence of discrete commands. Legislative and executive powers overlap and blend.

Like legislative power - shared by Congress and President (via veto power) so too is executive power shared via oversight - and in the extreme case impeachment.  The President is charged with the duty to: "faithfully execute" the laws which Congress passed - even if passed without executive consent.  As John Marshall once said "I have always considered Congress to be my government."

But Rao severs the legislative from the oversight and investigative functions of the Congress.  In her stringent parsing investigation of a President for law enforcement purposes is beyond Congress's reach.  She sees impeachment motives behind the subpoena and finds that beyond the House's legislative powers.  She would void the subpoena; finding that the impeachment process is the only valid source of power to investigate our elected monarch.

Congress's legislative and oversight power does not extend to investigation of Presidential misconduct in Rao's thinking.  
Invoking an unwritten and previously unsuspected rule she says an express vote of the entire House is required to begin impeachment proceedings. But how would Congress learn of whether there are the "high crimes and misdemeanors"?  Or whether legislative or other measures would suffice?  Rao's rigid rules would hobble the Congress and leave the President unfettered. 
- GWC October 18, 2019

PrawfsBlawg: The President’s Tax Returns


by Marty Lederman - Georgetown Law

Judge Rao's reasoning is that because the Constitution gives the House the power to impeach civil officers, and the Senate the power to try impeachments and to remove officers, that must be the exclusive means by which Congress can investigate wrongdoing by any and all such civil officers--the President, the Vice President, all Art. III judges, all civil officers within the Executive branch, etc.

No, that's not an exaggeration. She wrote: "Impeachment provides the exclusive method for Congress to investigate accusations of illegal conduct by impeachable officials." And: "Allowing Congress to use the legislative power to circumvent the impeachment process disrupts the separation of powers." And: "Investigating unlawful actions by impeachable officials is outside the legislative power because impeachment provides the exclusive mechanism for Congress to investigate such conduct." And: "The Constitution is best read to provide for impeachment as the exclusive mechanism for Congress to investigate the wrongdoing of the President and other impeachable officials." [There are plenty more examples, too.]

Personally, I find such a stunning proposition to be virtually self-refuting--or, in any event, refuted by everything we know about the history of congressional oversight. (That why it's hardly surprising that Trump's attorneys didn't make this argument, even though they were very aggressive/creative in the arguments they did make.)

Judge Rao's principal error, but hardly her only one, is that she conflates the power to try officials for "crimes," and to remove them from office (something Congress can only do by impeachment, trial and a 2/3 vote in the Senate, of course) with the power to merely investigate, uncover and publicize wrongdoing by government officials--hardly limited to "crimes," let alone to conduct that might warrant the extreme sanction of removal. (And in this case, also to investigate possible conflicts of interest of the President, something that might not even amount to wrongdoing at all.) This is, of course, the sort of thing Congress has been doing throughout the history of the nation, both in the service of possible legislation and pursuant to its "informing function" (informing itself and the public about how the government is operating and whether and how officials are or are not complying with the law), a function Congress "has assiduously performed ... [f]rom the earliest times in its history." Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 200 n.33 (1957). (I wrote much more about this after the oral argument in Mazars, here: https://balkin.blogspot.com/2019/07/can-congress-investigate-whether.html)

The Cipollone Letter: Trouble in the White House Counsel’s Office - Lawfare

Judge Neomi Rao - in her scary dissent in Trump v. Mazars - fails to grasp this point.  Scary because her repudiation of the House's oversight power, and assertion of right to review its impeachment process, writes a road map for her ex boss Clarence Thomas and his conservative cohorts on the Supreme Court.
The Cipollone Letter: Trouble in the White House Counsel’s Office - Lawfare
by Bob Bauer
The Constitution leaves it to the House [of Representatives], in its exercise of the “sole power to impeach,” to develop as it sees fit the procedural safeguards in an impeachment inquiry. 

Seventeen former Watergate prosevutors call for Trump impeachment

We investigated the Watergate scandal. Trump should be impeached. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-investigated-the-watergate-scandal-we-believe-trump-should-be-impeached/2019/10/10/5cf0c2ce-eb72-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html

Bowman: White House Letter Distorts Both Law and History on Impeachment

White House Letter Distorts Both Law and History on Impeachment - Just Security
by Prof. Frank Bowman (Author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors - Impeachment in the Age of Trump

The White House letter of October 8 refusing all executive branch cooperation with the ongoing House impeachment inquiry is, simply put, a public relations exercise. The legal arguments it intersperses between insults to members of the House Democratic leadership and appeals to the President’s base voters are without foundation. The errors and mischaracterizations are so numerous that they cannot all be addressed in this space. Instead, I will consider only the fundamental misconceptions at the heart of the White House argument, as well as a single illustrative historical incident – the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson.

The White House justifies its refusal to respond to the House’s investigative demands on three basic grounds: First, it claims that the House impeachment inquiry is “constitutionally invalid” because the full House has not passed a resolution specifically authorizing an impeachment inquiry of this president. Second, it maintains that the House inquiry now underway is illegitimate because it does not afford the president “due process” rights the letter suggests are required under the Constitution. Third, it asserts that the first two points are established by “every past precedent.” All these assertions are wrong.

Indictment: U.S.A. v. Parnas et al

United States of America v. Parnas, et al. - Indictment
2 . LEV PARNAS, IGOR FRUMAN , DAVID CORREIA , and ANDREY KUKUSHKIN , the defendants, conspired to circumvent the federal laws against foreign influence by engaging in a scheme to funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and State office so that the defendants could buy potential influence with candidates, campaigns, and the candidates' governments.

At least four national security officials raised alarms about Ukraine policy before and after Trump call with Ukrainian president - The Washington Post

At least four national security officials raised alarms about Ukraine policy before and after Trump call with Ukrainian president - The Washington Post
by Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe

At least four national security officials were so alarmed by the Trump administration’s attempts to pressure Ukraine for political purposes that they raised concerns with a White House lawyer both before and immediately after President Trump’s July 25 call with that country’s president, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the matter.

The nature and timing of the previously undisclosed discussions with National Security Council legal adviser John Eisenberg indicate that officials were delivering warnings through official White House channels earlier than previously understood — including before the call that precipitated a whistleblower complaint and the impeachment inquiry of the president.

At the time, the officials were unnerved by the removal in May of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine; subsequent efforts by Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to promote Ukraine-related conspiracies; as well as signals in meetings at the White House that Trump wanted the new government in Kiev to deliver material that might be politically damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

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The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

Eric Foner -The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
In his new book The Second Founding, Eric Foner - the premier historian of the Reconstruction era - works to demonstrate that the three post civil war amendments to the Constitution were a re-founding of the nation.  The 13th abolished slavery, the 14th provided for birthright citizenship and promised equal protection of the law and Due Process, while the 15th barred discrimination in voting rights on the basis of race.  Foner seeks to revive the jurisprudence of the post civil war leaders.  They sought to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal..endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights - life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". 

The Thirteenth Amendment legally abolished slavery in 1865.  Article 2 declared “ Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”  Congress...not the states.  The Congress recognized that the defeat of the secessionists and the new Amendment had transformed the relationship between the states and the national government.  Four million slaves had become citizens.

The Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 obligated the states to provide equal protection of the laws and forbade any state to "abridge the privileges or immunities" of citizens of the United States".  The phrasing of the amendment - “No state shall” was the syntactic handle for the post-Civil War Reconstruction era Supreme Court to sap it of much of its power.  Only `state action' was proscribed.  Private discrimination was not and could not be reached by national government power, as the court expounded the Amendment.  Almost 100 years of systematic, largely sanctioned racial discrimination followed.  
In 1968 in Jones v. Alfred Mayer Co. the Supreme Court briefly resurrected the Thirteenth, declaring that it barred the private discrimination of the refusal of a real estate company to sell a house to a black man.  For one hundred years the Civil Rights Act of 1866 - enforcing the 13th Amendment - had lain dormant.   It provides:

All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. 42 U.S.C. 1982

When the black movement for civil rights finally won the Civil Rights Act of 1964 it was implausibly justified by the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce - rather than in the duty of the states to assure every person the equal protection of the laws.

The language of the Fourteenth Amendment is plain enough:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

But in the hands of the justices of the United States Supreme Court the opening phrase “No state shall...” was interpreted to bar only state action - not state failure, or inaction that left persons without the equal protection of the laws.  In the worst of cases Cruikshank v. United States  (1876) six “private” murderers -of  the dozens of black defenders at the Colfax, Louisiana Courthouse - were convicted of violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1870 [aka the Enforcement Act].   But the killers went free because the murderous acts alleged were within the jurisdiction of the State, not the United States.  The indictment was dismissed because the rights violated - life - were not federal but rather natural rights protected by the sovereign states.  The 1866 act was said to be of no avail because the indictment had not specified the racial motivation of the killers.

It is not easy at this moment to imagine a rebirth of the desire to see the nation finally reconstructed.  But maybe this IS the moment. - GWC

Defiance: White House Letter in Response to the Impeachment Inquiry - The New York Times

RAGE.
Read the White House Letter in Response to the Impeachment Inquiry - The New York Times

White House official told whistleblower Trump Ukraine call was 'frightening' - ABC News

White House official told whistleblower Trump Ukraine call was 'frightening' - ABC News

READ: Senate Intel Concludes Russia Intervened In 2016 To Boost Trump | Talking Points Memo

Contra Trump and Putin's denials the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Russia used social media to harm Hillary Clinton and to help Donald Trump in the 2016 elections.
READ: Senate Intel Concludes Russia Intervened In 2016 To Boost Trump | Talking Points Memo

Four Pinocchio's for Trump charges re Bidens

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/26/trumps-false-claims-about-hunter-bidens-china-dealings/

MOU: Reporting of Information Concerning Federal Crimes

Memorandum of Understanding - Office of the Director of National Intelligence
IC Legal Reference Book
MOU: Reporting of Information Concerning Federal Crimes
I Introduction
This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) sets forth the procedures by which each agency and organization within the Intelligence Community shall report to the Attorney General and to federal investigative agencies information concerning possible federal crimes by employees of an intelligence agency or organization, or violations of specified federal criminal laws by any other person, which information was collected by it during the performance of its designated intelligence activities, as those activities are defined in E[xecutive] .O[rder]. 12333, §§1.8-1.13.

VI. General Considerations: Allegations Of Criminal Acts Committed by Non-Employees

A.  This MOU requires each employee of the Agency to report, to the General Counsel or as otherwise directed by the Department or Agency head, facts or circumstances that reasonably indicate to the employee that a non-employee has committed, is committing, or will commit one or more of the specified crimes in Section VII, below.

VII. Reportable Offenses by Non-Employees

A. Unless exempted under Section III, above, allegations concerning criminal activities by non-employees are reportable if they pertain to one or more of the following specified violations of federal criminal law:
b.      Obstruction of justice or bribery of U.S. officials or witnesses in U.S. proceedings, whether occurring in the United States or abroad;

c.       Interference with U.S. election proceedings or illegal contributions by foreign persons to U.S. candidates or election committees;

Opinion | How Mandatory Minimums Enable Police Misconduct - The New York Times

Opinion | How Mandatory Minimums Enable Police Misconduct - The New York Times
by Scott Hechinger (Brooklyn Defender Services)
Last year, Jacob, a young man I represented, made an exceedingly rare choice. He rejected a favorable plea offer because he wanted to hold the police accountable in a hearing to challenge his illegal stop, search and arrest.

To those who do not work in criminal court, Jacob’s decision may not seem particularly momentous. Yet everyday across the country, police officers willfully violate people’s rights, in large part because of their certainty of never having to take the stand to answer for their actions.

Police departments rightfully get blamed for the crisis in violent and corrupt policing. The recent firing of Daniel Pantaleo, the New York Police Department officer who strangled Eric Garner to death, lied about it, kept his job for five years and got terminated only after international pressure and the recommendation of a Police Department judge, underscores why.

But the near impossibility of getting fired is only part of the crisis of impunity. An overlooked but significant culprit is mandatory minimum sentencing.

KEEP READING

 

Holding Ukraine hostage. WaPo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/holding-ukraine-hostage-how-the-president-and-his-allies-chasing-2020-ammunition-fanned-a-political-storm/2019/10/04/100e9868-e6a5-11e9-a331-2df12d56a80b_story.html

Foreign Affairs Committee releases Ukraine emails

https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2019/10/three-chairs-provide-update-on-investigative-work-volker-testimony-text-messages

Armed funeral parade. In Sadr city, Baghdad

https://twitter.com/thestevennabil/status/1179203096867528704?s=09

Roe v. Wade endgame 5

https://www.vox.com/2019/9/26/20873873/supreme-court-gut-roe-v-wade-next-week-abortion

ICIG Statement on Processing of Whistleblower Complaints.pdf

Donald Trump today disparaged as "almost a spy" the person who reported his misconduct.
The Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community has affirmed its compliance with law in its review of the complaint by an Intelligence Community employee about the conduct of Donald Trump and others.  The IG's review of the complaint led it to conclude that the matter is urgent.   The Department of Justice directed the IG, contrary to statue, to refuse to forward its findings to the Intelligence Committees of the United States Congress.
ICIG Statement on Processing of Whistleblower Complaints.pdf

A Leading Security Clearance, Federal Employment, and National Security Law Firm | Compass Rose Legal Group, PLLC

The Whistleblower's lawyers.
A Leading Security Clearance, Federal Employment, and National Security Law Firm | Compass Rose Legal Group, PLLC
The Whistleblower's got the Compass Rose Legal Group and Adam Schiff.
Trump has Rudy Giuliani and Devin Nunes

Bobby Fuller Four - I Fought The Law(1966)

Former NSA Inspector General Sees lawyers' misconduct in reclassifying Trump phone call records

The former (GW Bush administration) Inspector General of the National Security Agency on the vulnerability of the lawyers who mis-classified the record of the Trump-Zelensky conversation.

Joel Brenner (former NS Inspector General): allegations that WH attempted to cover up Trump-Ukraine call records is "deeply troubling" https://t.co/7bDg9VMnPs

— George Conk (@GeorgeConk) September 27, 2019

China’s Imperatives for National Security Legislation by Fu Hualing :: SSRN

China’s Imperatives for National Security Legislation by Fu Hualing :: SSRN

China’s Imperatives for National Security Legislation

China’s National Security: Endangering Hong Kong’s Rule of Law?, Cora Chan and Fiona De Londras (eds) (Hart, 2020)

19 Pages Posted: 20 Sep 2019

Fu Hualing

The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law

Date Written: September 12, 2019

Abstract

China’s Party-State has given priority to stability and security and increasingly sees Hong Kong’s democratic aspiration as a threat to China’s national security. In response, Hong Kong has engaged in a mega constitutional dialogue with its authoritarian sovereign. The court has disqualified members of LegCo for their secessionist speeches, and severely punished those who have resorted to violence. The court has treated non-violent civil disobedience with leniency and tolerance, holding the line against the authoritarian intrusion from Beijing as long as the protest is conducted in a peaceful manner.

Trump, Giuliani, and Manafort: The Ukraine Scheme | by Murray Waas | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books

Trump, Giuliani, and Manafort: The Ukraine Scheme | by Murray Waas | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
by Murray Waas

New information in this story suggests that these two, seemingly unrelated scandals, in which the House will judge whether the president’s conduct in each case constituted extra-legal and extra-constitutional abuses of presidential power, are in fact inextricably linked: the Ukrainian initiative appears to have begun in service of formulating a rationale by which the president could pardon Manafort, as part of an effort to undermine the special counsel’s investigation.

Trump and the quid pro quo

Explicit quid pro quo. Felony bribery.
Zelensky: “We are ready to continue to cooperate... buy more Javelins”
⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩: “I would like you to do us a favor THOUGH.”
This is linguistically the same as “If you do us a favor...” or
“However, you do us a favor...” pic.twitter.com/27pqEh0apz

— Jed Shugerman (@jedshug) September 25, 2019

R. v. The Prime Minister - the Judgment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

R. v. The Prime Minister - the Judgment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom: The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has declared unlawful the Prime Minister's "prorogation" (suspension) of Parliament.  It rules that...

Detained: how the US built the world's largest immigrant detention system

Detained: how the US built the world's largest immigrant detention system https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/detained-us-largest-immigrant-detention-trump?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

ABA: immigration courts near collapse

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/09/immigration-courts-irredeemably-dysfunctional-and-on-the-brink-of-collapse-by-nolan-rappaport.html

7 national security Democrats: If true, Trump’s actions are impeachable - The Washington Post

7 national security Democrats: If true, Trump’s actions are impeachable - The Washington Post
This flagrant disregard for the law cannot stand. To uphold and defend our Constitution, Congress must determine whether the president was indeed willing to use his power and withhold security assistance funds to persuade a foreign country to assist him in an upcoming election.

Trump's Ukraine Call: A Clear Impeachable Offense - The Atlantic

Trump's Ukraine Call: A Clear Impeachable Offense - The Atlantic
by Tom Nichols (Professor - Naval War College)

Now, however, we face an entirely new situation. In a call to the new president of Ukraine, Trump reportedly attempted to pressure the leader of a sovereign state into conducting an investigation—a witch hunt, one might call it—of a U.S. citizen, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden.

As the Ukrainian Interior Ministry official Anton Gerashchenko told the Daily Beast when asked about the president’s apparent requests, “Clearly, Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in prison.”

Conway and Katyal: Trump's breach of trust demands impeachment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-has-done-plenty-to-warrant-impeachment-but-the-ukraine-allegations-are-over-the-top/2019/09/20/51eff90c-dbf1-11e9-bfb1-849887369476_story.html

That last phrase — “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” — was a historical term of art, derived from impeachments in the British Parliament. When the framers put it into the Constitution, they didn’t discuss it much, because no doubt they knew what it meant. It meant, as Alexander Hamilton later phrased it, “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” 

Simply put, the framers viewed the president as a fiduciary, the government of the United States as a sacred trust and the people of the United States as the beneficiaries of that trust. Through the Constitution, the framers imposed upon the president the duty and obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and made him swear an oath that he would fulfill that duty of faithful execution. They believed that a president would break his oath if he engaged in self-dealing — if he used his powers to put his own interests above the nation’s. That would be the paradigmatic case for impeachment.