MAKE TRUMP'S CORRUPTION A KITCHEN-TABLE ISSUE

I keep thinking about something Hakeem Jeffries said late last month:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said Democrats will not focus on impeaching President Trump if they regain a majority in the lower chamber after midterm elections.

When asked if impeachment was a top priority, Jeffries said “of course not” during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I’ve made clear from the very beginning that our top priority is going to be to drive down the high cost of living,” the House minority leader added.

In other words, We're not getting distracted by calls for impeachment -- we're focused on ordinary Americans' finances. To be fair, this approach appears to be working: Democrats now have a 7.2-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, according to Real Clear Polling. In the new New York Times poll, that lead is 50% to 39%.

But this story makes me think that Democrats could sell impeachment as a pocketbook issue:

The Justice Department on Monday announced that it would create a new $1.776 billion taxpayer-backed fund that could pay out money to people — including President Trump’s allies and supporters — who think they were wronged by the department under previous administrations.

This amount of money -- $1.776 billion -- is about $5 for every person in America. That's not a life-changing amount of money for most people, but it still sounds like a big outlay, at a time when Americans feel that they're hurting. I've always believed that most Americans don't do any kind of mental arithmetic when they hear about government expenditures, so critics (usually Republicans) can easily get them angry about government outlays that might even be in the six-figure or five-figure range -- in other words, less than a penny per person in America. This is a lot more money.

If I were leading the Democrats, I'd be denouncing this corruption and linking it to Americans' financial pain: You're struggling, and Trump is using your tax dollars to pay himself and his alllies. Especially when this is just one element of Trump's campaign to enrich himself using the power of the presidency. David Rothkopf writes:

... the president has, throughout his time in office, engaged in thousands upon thousands of stock trades that appear to cash in on unique knowledge he had as president or of actions he intended to take. His sons run companies doing multimillion-dollar deals with the Pentagon and with governments worldwide seeking Trump’s favor.

Trump has accepted aircraft, donations to projects designed to glorify him, golden statues, bitcoins, and cash from suckers eager to buy up Trump swag. Trump phones, Trump watches, and the branding rights to Trump Airport in West Palm Beach are part of his scheme. It looks like the “Trump Presidential Library” may well include a hotel where people can pay to honor Trump in the way that means the most to him: with cash that ends up in his bank account.

Where is the money that the U.S. made from selling oil we stole from Venezuela? Who controls the billions that have been allocated from the U.S. Treasury and governments worldwide to the Board of Peace for Gaza? How many times has Trump sold pardons or lifted regulations or prosecuted or persecuted the innocent in exchange for campaign contributions?

I think Democrats should draw up articles of impeachment focused on this monetary corruption, and every Democrat in Congress should sign on as a sponsor. I think Democrats should introduce a bill preventing any outlay from that $1.776 billion fund, or even establishing an office to pay the money out, and every Democrat in Congress should sponsor that bill as well. I think they should link anti-corruption to a focus on Americans' financial woes.

Obviously, none of this can pass now. Obviously, an impeachment is likely to fail in the Senate even after the midterms. But putting Democrats on record as anti-corruption -- and Republicans in Congress on record as pro-corruption -- would send a message.

At the very least, I think Democratic campaign ads that alternate images of high gas prices with headlines about how much richer the Trump family has become since he returned to office would be powerful. Make Americans think about his finances when they think about their own.