Trying to rig the election is the most important impeachable crime

Ironically for Trump’s defenders, their argument that this should be decided at the ballot box in the next election reveals precisely why he must be removed from office and disqualified from running again.

When it comes to foreign election interference: Fool America once, shame on Trump and his foreign supporters; fool America twice, shame on America. Russia helped Trump in the last election; he has already pressured Ukraine and asked China for help in the next one.

As so often, the wisdom of our Constitutional Framers is instructive. Spoiler alert: Alexander Hamilton (in Federalist No. 72) knew Trump was coming:

An avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to … yield[ing] up the emoluments he enjoyed … might not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients. 

An ambitious man, too, when … seated on the summit of his country’s honors, … would be … violently tempted to embrace a favorable conjuncture for attempting the prolongation of his power, at every personal hazard.

Put another way, Donald Trump likes how he can line his and his family’s pockets with emoluments—at his D.C. hotel, his far-flung golf resorts, Mar-a-Lago. Now, with the potential of election loss next year, he makes “recourse to the most corrupt expedients.” He is indeed “violently tempted” to every effort to prolong his power.

Our Framers expected, our Constitution allows, and our national ideals demand that Donald Trump be prevented from cheating in the next election. Other than denying him the Republican party nomination, impeachment by the House and removal and disqualification by the Senate is the only remedy.