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The truth is that Trump is not promoting transparency. This is, as The Washington Post editorial board explains, an "obvious abuse of presidential power in a matter implicating himself."
Former acting director of central intelligence John McLaughlin describes Trump's unprecedented interference as "wrong on so many levels for Justice, law-enforcement, intelligence," and argues that "This probably qualifies as the President's most serious assault on the Justice system yet."
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Along with the practical issues, Trump's wrongdoing raises profound constitutional concerns.
"President Trump, in a clear abuse of power, has decided to intervene in a pending law enforcement investigation by ordering the selective release of materials he believes are helpful to his defense team and thinks will advance a false narrative," says California Congressman Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "With respect to some of these materials, I have been previously informed by the FBI and Justice Department that they would consider their release a red line that must not be crossed as they may compromise sources and methods," Schiff added. "This is evidently of no consequence to a President who cares about nothing about the country and everything about his narrow self-interest."
California Congressman Eric Swalwell, a member of the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, was appropriately blunt. Calling the president "lawless…absolutely lawless," Swalwell pointed out that "[Trump] is the subject of an investigation. Using his power to selectively release classified information is an abuse of power. His days of unchecked abuse are numbered. Tick tock. We will just mark this as another exhibit."
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In particular, the committee argued that Nixon must be impeached "for interfering or endeavoring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees."
This is the type of interference in which Trump is now engaging.
In Nixon's time, Republicans joined Democrats in moving to hold a Republican president to account for obstruction of justice. These are different times. But there can be no excuses for members of Congress, no matter what their partisanship, who fail to recognize that the impeachment power exists to address precisely so lawless a presidency as that of Donald Trump.
(John Nichols wrote the foreward to the book The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump (Melville House), to which John Bonifaz contributed, along with constitutional lawyers Ron Fein and Ben Clements.)