“When Burisma announced [Hunter] Biden’s appointment to its board in the spring of 2014, every media outlet under the sun covered the news… were Trump or congressional Republicans actually concerned about corruption in Ukraine, they had years to say something about it. That they’re only now speaking up proves perhaps as well as anything that the president’s pressure on Ukraine was about nothing but extorting a foreign country to interfere in U.S. politics for Trump’s political benefit.”
James Downie, Washington Post

“Witness after witness testified that the president held up desperately needed, congressionally approved aid to Ukraine to extort a personal political favor for himself… [It is] highly likely that Trump would be — will be — acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate, and that, rightly or wrongly, he would point to that in his reelection campaign as exoneration. But those concerns must yield to the overwhelming evidence that Trump perverted U.S. foreign policy for his own political gain. That sort of misconduct is outrageous and corrosive of democracy. It can’t be ignored by the House, and it merits a full trial by the Senate on whether to remove him from office.”
Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times

“If Mr. Trump is so clear in his own mind that he didn’t try to pressure the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 election, why won’t he send the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to testify under oath that there was no quid pro quo? Instead, he has issued a blanket refusal to allow officials of his administration to testify or submit documents demanded by Congress… the people clearly need to hear from material witnesses like Mr. Pompeo and the former national security adviser, John Bolton, both of whom have been said by sworn witnesses to have firsthand knowledge of whether President Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to help him win the 2020 election. Their silence is its own form of negligence toward the public’s trust.”
Editorial Board, New York Times

Many argue that “The Democrats would be wise to focus narrowly on Ukraine. Focused impeachment articles would not detract from the power of the charges against Mr. Trump. They would be more persuasive to the many Americans who hesitated to support impeachment before the Ukraine affair emerged — a group that includes Ms. Pelosi and many other top Democrats… the current impeachment process enjoys a legitimacy that it would not otherwise have if Democrats had jumped to impeach based on Mr. Mueller’s findings alone. That Ms. Pelosi resisted impeachment for so long lends credibility to the argument that Mr. Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine was not just very bad but unique and unacceptable.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post

Others posit that “To make clear the full gravity of what Trump tried to do in Ukraine, Democrats need to demonstrate that it was part of a pattern… public opinion on impeachment is unlikely to move much no matter what Democrats do. Nevertheless, they’d be mad to let centrist trepidation stop them from making the strongest possible case for Trump’s removal. Doing that requires a willingness to put Trump’s Ukraine corruption in context.”
Michelle Goldberg, New York Times

“The prospect of impeaching Trump for all of his impeachable misdeeds is daunting, simply because there are so many of them. But his misconduct cannot be ignored simply for the sake of political convenience…

“Polls suggest that in the partisan media landscape, many voters’ opinions have already calcified, but it remains likely that a full and public accounting of Trump’s copious wrongdoing, broadcast on television and covered in detail by the media, could change minds in a way that an abrupt party-line vote on a narrow and esoteric set of issues might not. Trump’s violations of the emoluments clause alone would probably provide enough fodder for hearings that could last well into the summer, a political and media event that might drive home to the American people the extent of his corruption and the gravity of the 2020 vote.”
Moira Donegan, The Guardian