House Democrats plan to introduce two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, alleging he abused his power and obstructed Congress.
However, Democrats are not expected to alleged that Trump engaged in bribery in his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as was previously reported by some media outlets.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the president attempted to conceal evidence from Congress and betrayed the public’s trust, which he claimed endangered the Constitution and the country’s national security.
Trump “solicited and pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 election,” Nadler said Tuesday.
Nadler added that the president allegedly “engaged in unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry,” prompting the obstruction of Congress article.
“No one, not even the president, is above the law,” he said.
Meanwhile, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) noted that House Democrats had to move on impeachment because they could not wait any longer for federal courts to rule on whether presidential aides should have to comply with congressional subpoenas.
“The argument ‘why don’t you just wait’ amounts to this: Why don’t you just let him cheat in one more election? Why not let him cheat just one more time? Why not let him have foreign help just one more time?” he said.
The announcement Tuesday comes about two-and-a-half months after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the lower chamber would begin an impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s actions involving Ukraine and an alleged “quid pro quo.”
A rough transcript of the phone call in question — from July 25, according to a whistleblower complaint — does not show that Trump threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless the country opened investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden, as well as Ukrainian government collusion with the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland testified during a House Intelligence Committee hearing that the president specifically said he wanted “no quid pro quo” with Ukraine, and that he “wanted nothing,” only to have Zelensky “do the right thing.”
“On September 9, 2019 … I asked the president: ‘What do you want from Ukraine?’ The president responded, ‘Nothing. There is no quid pro quo.’ The president repeated, ‘No quid pro quo’ multiple times. This was a very short call. And I recall the president was in a bad mood,” he testified.