by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:

Impeachment mania is reaching a fever pitch in Washington, and as I reported a couple of days ago, the Democrats are hoping to have articles of impeachment ready for a House vote around Thanksgiving.  But in order to impeach the president of the United States, you need to have an impeachable offense first, and even if everything that is being alleged is 100 percent true there is simply no impeachable offense in this case.  In recent days there has been a lot of talk about “the integrity of our elections” and Donald Trump has been accused of “betraying his oath of office”, but top Democrats never seem to publicly bring up any specific law that Trump has violated.  The U.S. Constitution sets a high standard for impeaching the president, and unless that standard is met, impeachment proceedings should not go forward.  Some progressive writers have attempted to suggest that Trump is guilty of bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice or a campaign finance violation, but none of those crimes comes anywhere close to fitting the facts of this case.  Democrats may have been offended by what Trump said during his call with the president of Ukraine, but being offended is not enough to impeach someone.

Just as Trump is commander in chief of the U.S. military, so also is he the top law enforcement official in the land.  And as the top law enforcement official, it is entirely appropriate for him to go after corruption wherever it is found.

Joe Biden and his son were clearly involved in some very shady things in Ukraine, and there is nothing wrong with Trump encouraging the president of Ukraine to look into those things.

Considering the current political climate in Washington, it may not have been the most advisable thing to do, but Trump certainly did not break any law.

And if the Republican Party was 100 percent united behind Trump, this entire saga would go away very quickly.  Once Democrats realized that there was zero chance of a successful vote in the Senate, the momentum toward impeachment would completely fizzle out.

But that isn’t happening.  In fact, a Republican member of the House just announced that he is publicly supporting the impeachment inquiry…

Rep. Mark Amodei supports the House’s inquiry into whether President Donald Trump should be impeached, but is withholding judgment on whether Trump has crossed the legal line.

“Let’s put it through the process and see what happens,” Amodei, the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, said on a call Friday with reporters, adding that he believes Congress is justified to look into the matter.

“I’m a big fan of oversight, so let’s let the committees get to work and see where it goes,” he added.

And this comes on the heels of two Republican governors coming out in favor of it as well…

Two Republican governors recently announced they are in favor of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, which makes them the very first members of the Republican Party to publicly voice support for the investigation.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott was the first GOP chief executive to throw his support behind the impeachment proceedings, saying he is not surprised by the president’s alleged actions. However, Scott warned Democrats to stay focused on the facts. He emphasized that the inquiry needs to be objective and should not be based on political motivations surrounding the upcoming election.
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Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said that he also supports a congressional investigation into President Trump.

In addition, Republican presidential candidate William Weld is making headlines all over the world by suggesting that President Trump deserves the death penalty…

The former Massachusetts Governor said that President Donald Trump’s ‘acts of treason’ in allegedly pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden deserved the death penalty.

During an interview on MSNBC’S Morning Joe, he claimed: ‘Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election, it couldn’t be clearer.

‘And that’s not just undermining Democratic institutions, that is treason. It’s treason pure and simple and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death.’

Is he serious?

Personally, I don’t think that Weld even understands the definition of “treason”, and he should be completely and utterly ashamed of himself for suggesting such a thing.

In the end, what is really going to matter is what Republicans in the Senate think.  If there is a vote on articles of impeachment on the House floor, Nancy Pelosi is going to make sure that vote is successful.  Then this matter will go to the Senate, and it will take 67 votes to remove Trump from office.

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