I’m very upset at the idea of an impeachment that does not include emoluments. When I discuss these issues with conservative relatives, they are obstinate to the n’th degree… but they understand the self-dealing and conflict-of-interest involved when explaining the emoluments clauses. About half of the time they say “oh, no one is charging him with that”, but half the time they’ll let me explain my problem with the violation of these clauses.
“If you own a peanut farm”, I say, “you can’t give yourself the government contract for peanuts”. They understand bribery, self-dealing, and conflict of interest, but think they have a pass on not answering for it b/c the news organization and democrats are not putting it front and center. Believe me, I also discuss “but can you do us a favor though?”, and they are “lalalalala” about that, but much less so about “what do you not get about he’s paying himself, from our taxes, to vacation at his own business?” That’s hard to pretend “not to get”.
And why, WHY?! Why would the democrats not want to have this clear and absolutely criminal violation of the main body of the US Constitution in the Articles of Impeachment? Certainly no one wants to protect taking foreign and domestic emoluments…! Is it just so ordinary to them they don’t think it’s a real thing, just the “fake emoluments clause” as Trump called it? It baffles the mind.
From my point of view it’s one of the most dangerous violations possible. Have you ever noticed how dictators, who all self-deal, of even the smallest or most impoverished nations, become multi-multi-millionaires and billionaires? In the US that’ll be trillionaires. The motivation to use politics to get rich would be too much, too profitable, too powerful a reward, to sustainable once achieved… justifying billions and billions of expense and attracting the constant efforts of those willing to commit any crime whatever to secure the right to pursue it.
Not putting emoluments in the articles of impeachment makes it seem like we’re already at that point… that it’s already happened, that it’s already too late to pretend we have law and order when it comes to federal self dealing and they’re all invested in Halliburton. And I find that thought distressing.