Trump's favorite argument against impeachment fails the Richard Nixon test

On Sunday, President Trump revived one of his favorite arguments for why he shouldn't be impeached: Essentially, that he is too great a president to impeach. His supporting claims are all false or exaggerated, but Trump has two larger problems: First, the Constitution says nothing about accomplishments in its section on impeachment. And secondly, the only president to resign from office because of an impeachment investigation, Richard M. Nixon, was objectively a more accomplished president.

The comparison isn't entirely fair — Nixon had nearly six years in office before he resigned in the face of certain impeachment and likely conviction, while Trump has been in office only three years — but the principle is the same. Not all Nixon's accomplishments were positive, of course.

Nixon was forced from office in 1974 because an anonymous whistleblower revealed that his campaign cheated in the 1972 election by sending henchmen to dig up dirt on his Democratic rival, then covered it up. Trump is being accused of trying to send henchmen to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, only his alleged malfeasance was discovered before the election, and he involved a foreign country.

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Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump — who works for his campaign — made a similar argument about Trump being too successful to be impeached, and faced similar Nixonian objections:

Nixon, as many analysts have pointed out, did not have a powerful conservative media apparatus to support him. Maybe that will help Trump survive the impeachment process. Or maybe it will help ease him out. Peter Weber