Trump's Impeachment: Truth or Dare?

It's been reported that President Donald Trump made a phone call during the summer to Volodymyr Zelensky, who is the president of Ukraine, asking him to provide whatever information he could about Hunter Biden, who used to work for a gas company there.  He also happens to be the son of former vice president Joe Biden, currently the front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.  Trump allegedly threatened to withhold American military aid unless the information was produced, which would be difficult for a country like Ukraine, whose neighbor Russia has made themselves at home in the Crimea.

When the story appeared in this country, Trump bragged about it to what he likes to call the "fake news" media, daring Congress to try and impeach him.

Congress took the bait.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who had taken a "wait and see" approach to impeachment while scandals involving Russian election meddling and payoffs to porn stars fizzled while fellow Democrats watched in frustration, has decided she's seen enough.  She's ordered an inquiry into impeachment proceedings  The question is, did Pelosi wait too long?

Trump would be the third president to be impeached.  Andrew Johnson, who had the misfortune of following Abraham Lincoln as president, came within one vote of being removed from office.  Bill Clinton, for whom having "sexual relations with that woman" was considered an impeachable offense, barely survived a Senate vote to convict him.

(You'll notice we didn't include Richard Nixon, whose "high crimes and misdemeanors" during the Watergate era would have certainly qualified him for impeachment, if he hadn't resigned the Presidency first.)

It remains to be seen whether or not the Democratic-controlled House has enough evidence to send Trump to a trial in the Senate, whose Republican majority makes any attempt to remove the President nothing more than symbolic.  It might just be that, with an election year coming up, the Democrats' big gamble results in another four years of Trump if he is cleared.

So what's it gonna be?  No matter what happens, voters still have to do their jobs in November of 2020.