re: Specifically, how did President Trump abuse his power concerning Ukraine?

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1. That is one of several excuses (none under oath) he used for the military aid, yet he never showed any proof he tried to get EU spending increased in that time AND the EU and European nations have outspent the US on the Ukraine by a large margin.

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The EU has spent quite a bit, but the lion's share is in loans (not grants) and only a pittance is military aid. The US spending package in question was military aid, something we FAR outspend the EU on in regards to Ukraine and thus why Trump was delaying it while that was being looked into. Context.

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2. He can't predicate any official act on a personal benefit. There are rules against even using any public property for campaigning.

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He didn't predicate it on personal benefit. Joe Biden openly admitted on camera (at least twice) that as Vice President he extorted the Ukrainian government by using Congressionally allocated funds to have a prosecutor fired. Even without the additional angle of Joe's son being on the board of a company being investigated by that prosecutor (as well as the sole reason Hunter was on that board in the first place was because he was the son of the sitting Vice President), this alone would not be enough to Impeach a President. It is completely legal for a President to ask a foreign country to investigate a former Vice President in this sort of instance, even if that person is a political rival. Why? Because the Constitutional standard for Impeachment in something like this is that Congress must establish the President's intent in making the request.

This is done by asking was it done in good faith, with US foreign or domestic interests in mind or in bad faith, merely for Trump's personal gain and political benefit?

Because of Due Process we consider the first by default, thus Congress has the burden of proving the latter. They must show that charges of corruption against the Bidens are baseless and that Trump's request to Ukraine is part of a pattern of bad faith which demonstrates that the US can no longer tolerate his incumbency.

Let me state that again: In order to sustain their charge, that the ask of Ukraine was for personal gain, Congress must first prove that the claims against the Bidens are baseless.

They have not only not done that, they have done their best at every turn to avoid the topic of Joe Biden's comments and actions.

But what else can we expect from a group whose leader said there would be no Impeachment Inquiry without bi-partisan support but went ahead anyway even though the only bi-partisan support was AGAINST moving forward?

What else can we expect from a group whose basis for Impeachment is so pathetically weak that they walked away from 200+ years of non-biased precedent in handling Impeachment to create their own obscenely biased version?

What else can we expect from a group who held closed door meetings just so they could leaked cherry-picked quotes?

What else can we expect from a group who mandated that any of the opposition reading those closed-door transcripts (which were always going to be released) must be accompanied by someone from the majority?

What else can we expect from a group who called whomever they liked and asked whatever questions they wanted but limited whom the opposition could call and what questions the opposition could ask?

What else can we expect from a group who brought in three Constitutional "scholars" who are widely known for their anti-Trump stance (one going so far as to state she crosses the street rather than walk directly in front of a Trump-owned building) to combat the points of only the one scholar they allowed their opposition to bring in?

If their charges held any validity they wouldn't feel the need to stack the deck as they have.


If you can't see the sham being perpetuated by this Impeachment attempt, it's solely because you've decided to put party politics and personal feelings above the Constitution.