To have done so was wrong, plain and simple. American political campaigns should be American affairs. Yet a presidential act can be wrong, even blatantly wrong, without justifying impeachment. Democrats in the grip of an anti-Trump fever currently are ignoring that distinction.

Of course there ought to be scrutiny of Vice President Biden’s actions. On a level media playing field, that would long ago have been on the front burner. It is one thing for politicians to apply different standards to scandals depending on which party they affect. The supposedly neutral press should ask itself how it would be reacting if Trump had squeezed a foreign government by threatening to withhold public funds unless a prosecutor investigating a company tied to one of his sons were fired — regardless of the merits…

As for impeachment, if Democrats are intent on going down this road, it ought to lead to searching inquiry into the analogous behavior of past presidents. We would want to learn, for example, about the Obama administration’s dealings with Kyiv in 2016, when a Ukrainian investigation involving Trump campaign official Paul Manafort was suddenly revived, and a leak of documents — sourced to a Ukrainian legislator tied to the Clinton campaign — resulted in Manafort’s ouster as campaign chairman. We would also want to learn more about the investigation of alleged Trump–Russia “collusion,” which appears to have been encouraged by the Obama administration and whose origins are currently being probed by the Trump Justice Department.