For those not smart enough to figure this out Trump wants to be impeached. The Democrats don't want to impeach, but may not have a choice. Impeachment does not mean removal from office. It is a trial just like any other trial. Since the republican controlled senate serves as jury he most likely won't be found guilty. But even if found guilty the punishment could be something less than removal from office. Not every convicted criminal gets the max sentence.
The democrats are investigating and so far have a video of the president confessing to an impeachable offense as well as a written summary of a phone call where the president confesses to the crime. In the near future Trump will change his defense and admit so and claim that he did this thinking it was in the best interest of the country and the crime does not rise to the level of even having a trial. He is daring the democrats to begin impeachment because he thinks that playing the victim to a bunch of evil democrats will help his re-election. The democrats know and understand this too. It worked for Bill Clinton.
Right now both sides are watching the public opinion polls. If enough people support impeachment the democrats will be forced to vote for it. If not, they will find an excuse to move on. Even with an impeachment trial the democrats know they have almost no chance to have Trump removed. That isn't the goal. They all know it would be better to beat him in November 2020. But having the trial allows them to do a lot of investigating, they can force Trump to testify under oath where he stands a very good chance of getting caught lying.
Impeachment is a process where they can dig up a lot of dirt leading up to the election. And who knows which direction that may go. At this point in 1974 Nixon had far more support than Trump does now. But as the investigation continued more and more evidence of Nixon crimes came out leading to his resignation. Remember this, Nixon had absolutely nothing to do with the Watergate break in. He had no prior knowledge of the crime. Lying to investigators and trying to cover it up was what led to his resignation.
The fact that we still haven't seen an actual verbatim transcript of the call, the fact that it wasn't immediately disclosed that Pompeo was on the line, and the fact that the recordings of the call was moved sure looks like a coverup. We still don't know what was said, there is just a written summary of what Trump claims he said. And with reports coming out that there are possibly dozens of other similar calls to other people is concerning too. Rudy Giuliani's role is questionable too.
