All of the Impeachable Offenses

Ever since the release of the Mueller report, old-guard Democrats have held back on the question of impeachment. Though House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer walked back his comments that impeachment was “not worthwhile,” he set the tone for his party’s skepticism of what, Democratic leaders warn, could be a politically risky move. Meanwhile, the president announced on Twitter, “Only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment. There were no crimes by me (No Collusion, No Obstruction), so you can’t impeach.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump is wrong—and Democrats reluctant to impeach on the basis of the Mueller report alone should consider that the report only added to a preexisting pile of potential “high crimes and misdemeanors.” A large majority of scholars agree that impeachable offenses are not limited by the criminal code; the best definition of comes from the legal scholar Charles Black, who that the president