Upstanding people and some legal pundits keep pointing out that there is no explicit quid pro quo in Trump's conversation with Ukraine's newly elected president. Frankly, only the naivest of fools should expect there to be. Donald Trump may be a sleazy operator who from time to time crosses the line between what's legal and what isn't but he not so stupid as to go on record making an explicit ask.
His experience in real estate has taught him that you can threaten and bully implicitly as effectively, or more so, than by making a threat explicit. Simply hinting may be more effective than stating consequences baldly, leaving it to the bullied party to imagine what those consequences might be. The gift of two wrapped fish is not an exchange of favors but it sends a clearly understood message to those who swim in those kinds of dangerous waters.
Perhaps that's why he feels more comfortable interacting with despots than with democratically elected leaders of liberal democracies; despots have gotten to the top often by a similar exercise of power using implied threats. They understand one another better. They speak the same language of the under-world. It is a language of power, not of rationality.
What those involved in drawing up articles of impeachment need to look for then, is not a smoking gun, but a pattern of actions that might seem like ignorant mistakes in isolation but taken together display one or more underlying narratives; of self-dealing, of encouraging aids to break the law, and of mingling the personal with service to the country.
What has frustrated Democrats so far is they were sure time and again that there would be a smoking gun, political or legal. Yet nothing has stuck politically, and legally no single incident seems to rise to a level that makes impeachment a sure thing. They will need to carefully build a case based on circumstantial evidences; and while it might not convince (or frighten) enough GOP Senators, it might provide an important backdrop to the 2020 election.
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