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Trumps critics, including myself, have argued that the president placed his own political future above the nations interests. Blackman says that the calculus isnt that simple. Politicians pursue public policy, as they see it, coupled with a concern about their own political future, he wrote. Otherwise legal conduct, even when plainly politically motivatedbut without moving beyond a threshold of personal political gaindoes not amount to an impeachable abuse of power. The Houses shortsighted standard will fail to knock out Mr. Trump but, if taken seriously, threatens to put virtually every elected official in peril. The voters, and not Congress, should decide whether to reward or punish this self-serving feature of our political order.

He elaborated on his argument in an accompanying post at Reason, citing The Times length constraints. (For that same reason, he only addresses the abuse-of-power charge and not the obstruction charge.) Politicians routinely promote their understanding of the general welfare, while, in the back of their minds, considering how those actions will affect their popularity, he explained. Often, the two concepts overlap: Whats good for the country is good for the officials re-election. All politicians understand this dynamic, evenor perhaps especiallyMr. Trump. And there is nothing corrupt about acting based on such competing and overlapping concerns.

If Trump had withheld military aid and diplomatic favor from Ukraine out of legitimate concerns about widespread corruption, Blackmans argument here would carry more weight. But as Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler noted in a separate Reason piece, the facts suggest otherwise. As virtually all of the evidence in the record shows, what [Trump] asked for was the announcement of an investigation, and that he had no interest in combating actual corruption of any kind, he wrote. This difference may seem small, but it is keyand Joshs argument only works if this distinction is obscured.

To build his case, Blackman asserts that Trump is not the first president to consider his political future while executing the office. One of his two examples is a letter from President Abraham Lincoln to General William Sherman on September 19, 1864, about Indianas elections that fall. In the letter, Lincoln asks Sherman to let as many soldiers in his army from Indiana return home to vote as possible. The State election of Indiana occurs on the 11th of October, and the loss of it to the friends of the Government would go far towards losing the whole Union cause, he wrote. The bad effect upon the November election, and especially the giving the State Government to those who will oppose the war in every possible way, are too much to risk, if it can possible [sic] be avoided.

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The Best Defense of Donald Trump - The New Republic