In the days after Special Counsel Robert Mueller produced a report showing Trump encouraged and expected to benefit from a foreign attack on the 2016 election, then abused his powers of office to obstruct the ensuing investigation, one of the few Democrats who recognized that taking impeachment off the table would create an unacceptable level of moral hazard was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). She
warned, "If Donald Trump can do all that he tried to do to impede an investigation into his own wrongdoing and an attack by a foreign government," and Congress takes no action, "then it gives license to the next president, and the next president, and the next president to do the same thing."
The only thing her analysis missed is that Congress's inaction also gave
Donald Trumplicense to commit the same crimes all over again, this time with the awesome powers of the presidency at his fingertips.
And that is exactly what happened.