The House Intelligence Committee today released its "Trump–Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report." It can be read—lots of places, I'm sure, but including at NPR's website, here. Judging just from the Table of Contents, it appears the Committee envisions two Articles of Impeachment, one relating to Trump's solicitation, amplified by a pressure campaign, of Ukraine's help with his 2020 reelection effort, and the other relating to his obstruction of the investigation into this misconduct. It's evident that the committee collected more damning evidence than one would have known about, just from reading newspapers and watching the public hearings, and held it back until now. For example, AT&T must have felt obliged to comply with congressional subpoenas, even if the White House did not, for the Report includes call logs that appear suspicious, or just outright incriminating: certainly they support the Democrats' case for impeachment. Why so many phone contacts between Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, and the Office of Management and Budget, which would have overseen the release of congressionally approved foreign aid? Such a simple and obvious question bears on both potential Articles of Impeachment. If there is an innocent explanation for the calls, the Administration would want it to be known, but instead it is blocking the principals—Giuliani, his unknown contact at OMB—from supplying the information Congress is seeking.
Well, as far as how the movie ends, it doesn't really matter what the evidence shows. Our system places the fate of a corrupt president in the hands of his own party, and it's been clear now for awhile that the Republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump, Inc. What is the prospect of beating him at the polls? I'm more optimistic than my fellow hand-wringers. Trump won in 2016 with 46 percent of the vote, and his approval rating has rarely hit 46 since. I doubt he can win any electoral votes that he lost last time. If he doesn't, then the Democratic candidate needs 38 electoral votes that Clinton lost. The best candidates are:
Pennsylvania (20)
Michigan (16)
Arizona (11)
Wisconsin (10)
Florida (29)
North Carolina (15)
So, the Democrat needs three of them, unless one is Florida, in which case she (or he) needs just one of the other five—though this "two-state solution" is not apt to be realized, since I've listed the six in order of their probable degree of difficulty for a generic Democrat to crack, according to the preponderance of expert opinion (which, however, may not in the end prove expert): still, if Florida is blue on election night, it's very likely that more than just one of the four above it is too.
Last night, on "one of those shows," A.B Stoddard, a reporter at Real Clear Politics, told Brian Williams that Team Trump has written off Pennsylvania: they don't think they can win it. She also told him that they are investing in Georgia and Texas, the handicapping significance of which I tend to dismiss, since they have so much money that after falling out of a pocket some of it might very well blow into Idaho, too. Moreover, A.B. Stoddard is a reporter, not an oracle. Wringing my hands.
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