Ezra Klein debunks Republican's argument that impeachment requires criminal activity.

[femmedem]

This article is from October, but it's timely tonight as the Trump defense argues that impeachment and removal of office requires both criminal activity and abuse of power.

Which is a clue that modern definitions are not sufficient. We have to go back to what the words meant when they were added to the Constitution, and how they’ve been interpreted throughout US history. In that light, the conclusion is inescapable. Abuse of power may not be a crime. But it is, indisputably, a high crime and misdemeanor.

SNIP

But the bigger lesson is that “misdemeanors” did not mean then what it means now. In 1828, Webster’s defined it as “ill behavior; evil conduct; fault; mismanagement.” It wasn’t a light crime, but an abusive act.

SNIP

In Federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton argues that impeachment concerns abuses primarily “political” in nature. It’s easy to read that as a tautology: Of course a politician’s offenses will be political in nature. A clearer way to put his point is that impeachable offenses are those that endanger the political system itself.

The point of impeachment isn’t to punish the president but to protect the political system. Offenses that endanger the system — that undermine elections, that corrupt the functions of government, that break constitutional boundaries — cannot be left to elections because they warp elections.

More, which make the case more clearly than any four paragraphs could: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20926891/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-trump-impeachment-whitaker

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. We have to go back to what the words meant when they were added to the Constitution, and how

We have to go back to what the words meant when they were added to the Constitution, and how they’ve been interpreted throughout US history.

It's what J. Scalia would have wanted.