Jesus, you fuckwit!  The Articles of Impeachment were a list of crimes!  They weren’t a goddamn recipe book!

I was re-reading Congress’s Articles of Impeachment against Nixon.  Chilling stuff.

But it’s like Trump struggled to fit each Nixonian element into his busy schedule.  Here’s Article 1, the first and presumably most important part:

In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his consitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:

On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence.

So, lemmie see.  During the Presidential election, agents from his campaign staff broke into the Democratic Party records to steal political intelligence so they could use it against the Democratic candidate.

Huh.

Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.

After the election, the then-President used his office to cover up that hacking crime, denying it happened and delaying any investigation.

Nothing like that now

The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:

Making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

Yeah, Sessions never even talked to a Russian.  And Trump has no business dealings with Russia.  And he barely knows Manafort.  And….

Way too many of these to bother listing.

Withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

How many disclosure forms have we ‘amended’ so far?  Then re-amended?  Then withdrawn completely?  How much sworn testimony has been withdrawn or modified?

Approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counselling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;

Think of Sessions’ testimony during his confirmation hearing.

Interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;

Everyone with me so far?

approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;

There’s no legal proof yet, but the appalling flood of oligarch money, and the insanely complex web of corporate shells, fronts, cut-outs, money laundering, inside deals, straw owners, and simple, up-front graft flying around, it’s hard to believe there aren’t payments that dwarf the piddly Watergate payoffs.

Hell, Deutsche Bank’s (undisclosed) loan to Jared Kushner is what, $285M?  And we haven’t begun to unwind Paul Manafort’s inside deals, Russian loans, scuzzy real-estate work, links to Cyprus money-laundering, or the millions he owed to Russian oligarchs.

endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;

While Mike Pompeo hasn’t violated any laws we know of, he’s taken direct oversight of the CIA’s Trump counter-intelligence investigation.  They now report directly to him about everything.

Anyone find that suspicious?

disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;

I have no idea if this has happened, but think about Jeff Sessions, and his white-supremacist ties, his anti-civil-rights work, and how he guts financial investigations, and I wonder.

Making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or

That one’s my current favorite.  Back in the 70s, Congress thought that lying to the American people was bad.  Imagine that?  Almost quaint, these days.

But I agree.

Endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.

Yeah, ’cause pardoning Joe Arpaio didn’t send any kind of message.

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Read that paragraph again.  It’s like Trump took those words as his guiding light, right?

Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

(Before you ask, yes, the misspellings were in the original.  This was before spell-check, and they were in a rush to get it passed.)