Democrats unveil two impeachment charges
WASHINGTON — House Democrats announced two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, declaring he “betrayed the nation” with his actions toward Ukraine as they pushed toward historic proceedings that are certain to help define his presidency and shape the 2020 election.
The specific charges aimed at removing the 45th president of the U.S.: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the chairmen of impeachment inquiry committees at the U.S. Capitol, said they were upholding their solemn oath to defend the Constitution. Trump responded angrily on Twitter: “WITCH HUNT!”
Voting is expected in a matter of days by the Judiciary Committee, which begins deliberations Wednesday, and by Christmas in the full House. The charges, if approved, would then be sent to the Senate.
In the formal articles announced Tuesday, the Democrats said Trump enlisted a foreign power in “corrupting” the U.S. election process and endangered national security by asking Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including Democrat Joe Biden, while withholding U.S. military aid as leverage. The charges say Trump then obstructed Congress by ordering current and former officials to defy House subpoenas for testimony and by blocking access to documents.
The nine-page impeachment resolution says that by his conduct Trump “demonstrated he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”
“If we did not hold him accountable, he would continue to undermine our election,” Pelosi said later at a forum sponsored by Politico. “Nothing less is at stake than the central point of our democracy — a free and fair election.”
Trump tweeted that to impeach a president “who has done NOTHING wrong, is sheer Political Madness.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the Judiciary chairman, said the president “holds the ultimate public trust. When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country, he endangers the Constitution; he endangers our democracy; he endangers our national security. No one, not even the president, is above the law,” he said, announcing the charges.
Chairman Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee said, “We stand here today because the president’s abuse of power leaves us with no choice.”
Trump’s allies immediately plunged into the fight that will extend into the new year. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said Democrats are trying to “overthrow” the administration. Campaign manager Brad Parscale said Democrats “don’t have a viable candidate for 2020 and they know it.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would be “totally surprised” if there were 67 votes in the chamber to convict Trump, and signaled options for a swift trial. He said no decision had been made whether to call witnesses.
In drafting the charges against the president, Pelosi faced a legal and political challenge of balancing the views of her majority while hitting the Constitution’s bar of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Some liberal lawmakers wanted more expansive charges encompassing the findings from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The final resolution, slim in length yet broad in concept, attempted to find common ground by linking the Ukraine inquiry to the Mueller probe in two separate lines. It said the abuse of power was consistent with Trump’s “previous invitations of foreign interference in United States elections” while the obstruction charge was consistent with his efforts to undermine U.S. government “investigations into foreign interference.”
