It just seems weird to disregard one of the specific offenses regarded as impeachable in the constitution. Or trying to fit it under Treason which also has a specific definition that is far further from that than bribery.
I don't know if I would disregard the language. I'm just wary of using bribery without something more and having that something more be really concrete. Hamilton if Federalist 65 wrote,
A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective.
The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.
The delicacy and magnitude of a trust which so deeply concerns the political reputation and existence of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, speak for themselves. The difficulty of placing it rightly, in a government resting entirely on the basis of periodical elections, will as readily be perceived, when it is considered that the most conspicuous characters in it will, from that circumstance, be too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.
The convention, it appears, thought the Senate the most fit depositary of this important trust. Those who can best discern the intrinsic difficulty of the thing, will be least hasty in condemning that opinion, and will be most inclined to allow due weight to the arguments which may be supposed to have produced it.
What, it may be asked, is the true spirit of the institution itself? Is it not designed as a method of NATIONAL INQUEST into the conduct of public men? - Publis
My concern with just using bribery as it can be defined from a criminal statute is that I can probably take an hour and show how every President since Roosevelt has violated the statute at least in theory. There just needs to be something more to be so that we don't turn the executive branch into a powerless face at the hands of a House of Representatives fueled by the very passions that Hamilton knew were going to be there (and as an aside, why the original structure of the Senate was important but I can't nerd out on impeachment, Andrew Johnson and the 17th Amendment at the same time or I won't be able to walk tomorrow).
