President Trump currently faces an impeachment inquiry in the House because of decisions he’s made over the past 18 months. Well, that and because Democrats now control the House; had they not won a majority in the chamber last year, Trump would likely not face any impeachment inquiry over anything. But Democrats did win and Trump did make those decisions, and here we are.
One can’t help but wonder, though: What if Trump had done something different? What if he hadn’t withheld aid to Ukraine? What if he’d never made those requests in his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky? What if he had never hired Rudolph W. Giuliani to serve as his lawyer in the first place?
We decided to take that thought to its natural conclusion, creating a sort of choose-your-own-adventure for the Ukraine scandal. We’ve identified a number of critical junctures at which Trump might have taken another path and gamed out how things might be different if he made a different choice. All of this is a sliding scale, of course; some small, seemingly insignificant actions might have shifted things dramatically in unexpected ways. So we developed an impeachment score, tracking how much political danger you, our imaginary Trump surrogate, might be in. (Items highlighted in yellow actually happened.)
How high can you get the score? How low? Give it a shot.
Your impeachment score: 0
April 2018
Special counsel Robert S.Mueller III is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with your campaign. You need additional legal help.