One of the 26 articles of impeachment Rep. Steve Cohen just filed against President Trump accuses him of "self-aggrandizement." Not bribery. Not treason. Self-aggrandizement — a word that, until last Thursday, had never appeared in an impeachment resolution in the history of the United States Congress.
Cohen is a Tennessee Democrat and senior member of the House Judiciary Committee. He needed 26 tries to say "I don't like the president."
Professor Jonathan Turley, one of the few constitutional law scholars who can still read the document without squinting past the parts he doesn't like, captured it perfectly. Cohen "appears to believe that the problem with past impeachments has been brevity," Turley wrote. "His 26 articles of impeachment include everything short of ripping a label off a mattress, including the new impeachable offense of 'self-aggrandizement.'"
Rep. Cohen accused the President of "abuses of power, violations of his oath of office, and a sweeping range of other alleged misconduct." PJ Media, which broke the story wide, noted that the resolution reads less like a legal document and more like a Democratic Party wish list stapled to a subpoena.
The first article accuses Trump of "undermining democracy" by sowing doubt in elections. This from the party that challenged the legitimacy of the 2000, 2004, 2016, and 2024 elections. When Democrats question an election, it's civic engagement. When Republicans do it, it's apparently an impeachable offense.
The second article alleges Trump abused power by "waging war on Iran without congressional approval." Barack Obama conducted military operations in Libya without so much as a courtesy call to Congress. No articles were filed. No constitutional scholars were summoned. The standard, it turns out, is not the Constitution. The standard is the party affiliation of the president holding the pen.
From there, Cohen's resolution sprawls across every policy disagreement a House backbencher could cram into a single document. Article three targets alleged killings in international waters near Venezuela. Article four goes after military deployments involving American cities. Multiple articles attack Trump's immigration enforcement — his birthright citizenship executive order, the administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act, the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, and conditions at El Salvador's CECOT prison.
Then come the institutional grievances: unlawfully withholding congressionally appropriated funds, imposing loyalty tests on the federal workforce, improperly terminating inspectors general, and abusing presidential pardon powers.
Stripped of the legal costuming, the message is blunt. Govern as Democrats demand. Leave the federal establishment untouched. Do not challenge institutions the left considers its own. Deviate, and we'll call it a high crime.
The loyalty-test charge is particularly revealing. Cohen objects to the idea that federal employees should be expected to carry out the agenda of the president who was elected to set that agenda. The inspectors general charge objects to the president removing officials whose independence Democrats only discovered when a Republican started exercising the same authority every previous president held. These aren't constitutional violations. They're job descriptions.
Cohen sits on the House Judiciary Committee — the body that would actually process impeachment articles if they ever moved beyond a press release. That a senior member of that committee treats the impeachment clause as a suggestion box tells you everything about how seriously the Democratic caucus takes the mechanism. It's not a constitutional safeguard anymore. It's a campaign tool with a gavel.
Twenty-six articles. The number itself is the confession. When you need 26 separate reasons to remove a president, you don't have a case. You have a grievance collection. Any prosecutor who walked into court with 26 charges hoping one might stick would be laughed out of the building. Cohen isn't building a legal argument. He's building a political catalog — one that sits on a shelf today and becomes a weapon if Democrats ever recapture Congress.
The "self-aggrandizement" article will get the laughs, and it deserves them. But the infrastructure charge — that a president who enforces borders, restructures the federal workforce, and uses pardons as the Constitution explicitly allows is committing impeachable offenses — that's the one worth watching.
Cohen filed 26 articles. The Constitution requires one thing: "high crimes and misdemeanors." He couldn't find one, so he wrote 26.