Talk of impeachment...

Seen quite a few articles recently talking about the "rising" possibility that the Democrats (if they gain control of the House) will commence with impeachment hearings. Now obviously, none of this is "new". The Democrats have been clamoring on about impeachment since the day Trump was inaugurated. 

Of course, prior to that, the Democrats spent most of their energy trying to figure out how to "prevent" the election of Donald Trump from actually allowing Donald Trump to be President. Challenging election votes, lawsuits into election fraud, lawsuits regarding the electoral college, attempting to convince electoral college voters to go rogue. All in the name of defending the country from the Donald Trump Presidency.

Now , the reason for all of this new excitement is the recent legal setbacks of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. In a more reasonable time, with more reasonable people in elected office, there would be no thought that the convictions or guilty pleas of one person, actually makes another person guilty. But these are not reasonable times and the anti-Trump crowd are not reasonable people right now.

The reality is that Paul Manafort worked for Donald Trump's campaign for a matter of weeks. The criminal actions that he was charged and convicted of took place long before he had anything to do with Donald Trump. How this is somehow an indictment of Donald Trump (much less cause for impeachment) is a fairly significant question that nobody seems to want to answer.

The Michael Cohen would be more troublesome due to the fact that he as charged with a campaign contribution violation, and that he suggested that it was done with the knowledge of Donald Trump. While this certainly seems "closer" to Trump himself, most legal analysts suggest that there is no real "there" there. The worst case scenario here is that Trump would have unwittingly accepted a campaign donation that was over the limit and funneled through a company. However, since he paid Cohen back, it would appear that Cohen plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit.

More to the point, Trump would have expected that a non disclosure agreement (which he had done multiple times in the past) would have been considered a campaign contribution. The FEC has previously ruled that this sort of "hush money" is "not" a campaign contributions, and charges against John Edwards for a similar situation ended with no convictions. Proving "intent" would be difficult in this case, and that is the standard for a campaign violation to go from a civil matter (would generally includes a fine to the campaign) and a criminal one.

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Bottom Line: Just like every other "shoe" that dropped, this one will lose it's luster with the passing of time. Not because people are disinterested in very important things, but because these issues (that appear so big at first) tend to be less than meets the eye, and generally of little interest to the electorate once they have fully digested things, and allowed the media hype to burn off.  

People don't "really" care if Donald Trump slept with a porn star or a Playboy bunny.  They don't really care if he paid them hush money. They don't care about Michael Cohen. They don't care about Paul Manafort. They don't care if Donald Trump's butler has a second cousin who went to school with the son of a Russian oligarch. The fact that the media does everything in their power to promote these stories twenty four seven, does not alter these simple facts.  

Only those who do not want Donald Trump to be President, and quite honestly would not even need an excuse to support impeachment will continue to call for his removal. Those who prefer to treat the President like a President will need to see more than some infidelity and someone else's convictions to support impeachment.