Your definition and my definition of bribery are different.
Forget the word bribery.
Which government powers are you comfortable with the president using for personal gain?
Does your answer include the use of hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid money?
(It doesn't really matter which powers you answered, because the constitution expressly forbids the use of the presidential powers for personal gain.)
So the issue should be the second half. Did trump do this for personal gain.
We already have clear evidence of the president using those powers. He withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in aid..
We have a clear definition of something that specifically benefited him politically. The investigation of a political rival.
And there's clear evidence tying the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the thing that benefits him.
So there's clear evidence of the president doing something expressly prohibited by the constitution. And that's the case for impeachment.
But the good news is he has a clear and simple line of defense.
First, he can deny that the aid was tied to the investigation. That doesn't seem to be forthcoming. He repeatedly said "no quid pro quo" when this first came out, even though an explicitly stated quid pro quo is not necessary for this to be wrong. But multiple witnesses have said that there was an explicit quid pro quo and that it came from the president. At this point, he can concede that there was quid pro quo, or he can try to show that those witnesses are lying.
He could also explain why the requests he made didn't benefit himself personally. He's started to do this with the explanation that they were investigating corruption. That's compelling because the president is allowed to work with other countries to investigate things and is allowed to give or withhold aid.
But it's not clear why he wanted the president of Ukraine to announce the investigation into Biden and Burisma specifically. He hasn't given a good reason for that specific part which didn't directly benefit him.
There's plenty of good reasons why he would want to investigate corruption in general, or want things to be announced, but why specifically the investigation into a political rival? And why did he specifically want the president of the Ukraine to announce that portion of the investigation? What national interest did it serve to distinguish between one possible instance of corruption and others?
He could also deny that he was the one who tied the money to the investigation and announcement. That seems to be the defense right now, but each witness so far has eroded that defense.
The easiest way to answer that is just to say what actually happened. The president has been invited to testify but so far has refused.
He could have other people provide testimony that showed why he wanted the president of the Ukraine toannounce the investigation. Many witnesses close to the president have been subpoenaed, but the president has asked them to refuse to testify.
The Republicans in the House have the opportunity to defend him on these items, but they haven't addressed the issue that he used hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to benefit himself. Instead, their focus has been on the identity of the whistleblower, their concerns about Schiff, and other unrelated investigations.
The Republicans in the Senate will likely get the opportunity to defend him on these items. So far, the majority leader has said that he doesn't expect impeachment to pass before the evidence was made public, and another ranking leader said he wouldn't watch the evidence. Maybe they will have a good defense later
There's a lot of evidence that the president used hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to benefit himself.
But the president has the opportunity to clear things up. All he has to do is explain that he didn't actually use hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to benefit himself.
The big question is why isn't he doing that? It should be really simple if you didn't actually use hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to benefit yourself.