It is not as simple as those of you who like explanations that fit on a bumper sticker would like.
Whitaker is technically correct. The Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton in particularly specifically addressed this issue in the Federalist Papers and specifically rejected the idea that an abuse of power by the president should be a prosecutable crime because the very purpose off the Constitution- among other things- was to get away from the British history where Parliament consisted prosecuted high public officials for abuse of power everytime they had a disagreement over something.
They did not however argue that he was beyond penalty but that the remedy was to impeach and thus the impeachment clause.
The laymen, binary-bumper sticker level thinkers argue that an assertion that abuse is not a crime means he cannot be impeached totally misunderstand the legal and constitutional background at play here. The ability to prosecute for abuse -for a sitting president- is limited and difficult at best. But the ability to impeach for it is there anytime they want. So the argument against criminal prosecution is NOT a barrier to impeachment, and Whitaker is technically correct that the framers wanted prosecution to be difficult but the door is open to prove it as a high crime and misdemeanor if you can do it.
Yeh, I know the binary ones fell out after my first sentence.
That's fine.
