That's it, the essence of the Abuse of Power charge and the defenses against it.
Now, one can argue that the context supports interpreting these acts of "withholding" as an impeachable "abuse of power," but there is no way around the fact that that is an argument, a political argument, that must be made to the jury. It's not made by assertion. It requires "connecting dots," making inferences, evaluating witnesses and testimony, and quibbling over details. There is no forced conclusion, and in fact, ample grounds for political reasonable doubt. There is nothing here that is going to force Republican senators--let alone the few of their constituents who will pay any attention to the details being quibbled about--to come to an epiphany about the high justice of the Democrats' charges.
There's another kind of objection to the Abuse of Power charge that is less legalistic and requires no quibbling over details. That is to make the point that it is not particularly unusual--and certainly not urgently impeachable--for a US president to extract, or in this case try to extract, something of personal political benefit from another head of state, particularly at the relatively trivial level of the charge against Trump. Republicans can insist that what's being charged as an outrageous abuse is, in fact, a normal use of presidential power. Again, every president seeks, at least coincidentally, to gain personal political benefit from every foreign-policy interaction. S/he would be remiss not to. High crime? It's expected behavior.
This is the quintessential political defense. And it's a strong one, since it corresponds to the American people's widespread and correct belief that, with very few exceptions, whatever American politicians are doing they are doing ultimately for themselves. It's going to be very hard to whip up popular outrage about trying to condition two official acts on "public announcements". Most people will see the attempt to whip up such outrage as the moralizing hypocrisy it is.
Indeed, it's not only presidents who seek to use foreign heads of state to advance their own personal political interests in ways that are contrary to national interest. When members of Congress invited the Prime Minister of Israel to come here and harangue them and the American people into opposing a crucial foreign-policy position of the US government (the Iran deal), when they constantly sprang from their seats applauding that harangue, were they not doing so because, or at least knowing, that would redound to their personal political benefit? One politician's abuse is another 535 politicians' use of their office.
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