Don’t misunderstand me, I think he did too. It’s just that me thinking the president abused his authority contrary to the Constitution isn’t enough for me to convict him of abusing his authority contrary to the Constitution.
Without the right “legal theory” and evidence to support it, I wouldn’t vote to convict. I think some Republican senators, if not most of them, will buckle under a flawless legal theory for impeachment and conviction.
There is a legal argument that “high crimes” should be construed to mean statutory felonies instead of abuses of power. I don’t subscribe to that notion because I take a somewhat originalist view of the Constitution, and Publius was pretty clear that “high crimes” means abuse of power. Some senators might shift goalposts as a fallback and claim that the president must have committed a felony before they will convict. I think that’s a misinterpretation of the Constitution and further, it substantially weakens Congress’s impeachment powers. So that would hurt Republicans if a Democratic president ever abuses their power in the future. Not very smart, legally or politically, in my opinion.
~Max