Walt's longer answer begings with this quote from "How the impeachment process is supposed to work" (WWW 24/9/19): In the case of impeaching a sitting president, the House of Representatives can call for impeachment to begin if they believe that the president is guilty of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” according to the Constitution.
Q. What kind of "high crimes and misdemeanors" do the Dumbocrats now say Still-President Trump has committed?
A. Well, he had a telephone conversation (or two or three) with Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, in which he "solicited interference" in the 2020 election.
Q. What kind of interference?
A. Well, he wanted Mr Zelensky to investigate the business dealings in Ukraine of Old Joe Biden's sprog, Hunter.
Q. And that would be a crime in what way?
A. Well... errr... that would have been for the President's personal gain.
Q. In what way?
A. Well... errrrr....
The key word there is "personal gain". I think what the Founding Fathers had in mind, when they wrote the Constitution, was personal pecuniary gain, of the sort that resulted in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, the successor to President U.S. Grant. How President Trump would have gained from an investigation into the affairs of Hunter Biden is less than clear to me, unless they mean that such investigation would have somehow led to Mr Trump's re-election to a second term, which would have earned him another four years making a salary considerably less than he could have earned in speaking fees alone had he not been re-elected.
Ed. I think that is what they mean.
Q. I see. Anything else?
A. Well, yes. He tried to cover up the phone call(s) by "locking down" records of the call(s) in a security system designed to protect state secrets. Doing so posed a serious threat to the security of the Paranoid States of America, and we would never have known about it had a so-far-anonymous whistleblower not made a complaint which Joseph Maguire, the Director of National Intelligence [sic], sat on for a couple of days before sending it to the Department of Justice and, ultimately, the White House.
Q. Where are those records now?
A. Well... errr... they've been declassified and released to the public.
Yesterday, the Chairman of the House Intelligence [sic] Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), grilled Mr Maguire on why he (Maguire) initially withheld a copy of the complaint from lawmakers, choosing to notify the DoJ and White House first. This was wrong, the Dems say, because the President was the subject of the complaint and Attorney General William Barr was mentioned by Mr Trump during the controversial phone call.
Mr Maguire insisted he is "not partisan" and "not political," reminding the panel that he served under eight presidents and has taken the oath of office 11 times. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), says he and Mr Barr are part of "the cover-up of the cover-up".
Q. Seriously?
A. Very seriously. That's what she told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Morning Joe today, when he asked if she was concerned that the country's institutions could fail due to Barr's behaviour.
You couldn't make this stuff up. Looks to me like a clear case of the Dumbocrats trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. No. More like trying to make something out of nothing. As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told America's Newsroom, "Washington is always a circus, but this is three rings with all the clowns and it's nuts right now."
Further reading: "Andrew Cuomo says 'leftist' Dems pressured Pelosi on impeachment, warns it will go 'nowhere'", by Andrew Shaw, Fox News, 28/9/19.
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