During the 2016 campaign Donald Trump famously boasted that he could ‘shot someone on Fifth Avenue’ and not lose a single supporter. While we have no instances of Presidential attempted murder it would seem that Trump was perfectly on target with that pronouncement it is also a useful metaphor illustrating the absurdity of the GOP’s defense of Donald Trump as he faces near certain impeachment.

Let us suppose that Trump did stand on Fifth Avenue and fired a handgun at an innocent person calmly stating that he was going to kill that person, but being unversed the way of guns, he missed and the round going wildly off target and hitting no one.

The GOP defense of Trump starts out that he never shot at anyone, but that falls quickly as witness after witness come forward swearing to the facts that Trump did indeed shot at someone

The GOP then falls back to a defense built around, ‘well, he didn’t intend to kill,’ but again the witness dispel such arguments using Trump own statements that he was going to kill.

Which brings up to the current and most absurd defense.

“Well, he *missed*, no one was hurt so not only is he perfectly okay we should let him keep the gun!”

I have seen, repeatedly and all the damn place that because the Ukrainians didn’t actually deliver then Trump’s crime just goes *poof* and he should be safe from impeachment. Just as with the hypothetical I laid out, attempting to do a bad thing and with intent but doing it badly does not in any way excuse the bad thing.

We have to take the gun away or he will try to shoot someone else, and we must impeach and remove the president for abusing the powers of his officer for personal political gain. This will not happen because in the GOP mind there is no crime so terrible that it can be punished if that in any manner or form benefits the Democratic Party.