The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Panel lays out case against Trump
Democrats allege abuse of power, obstruction of Congress; White House replies that report found ‘evidence of nothing.’
WASHINGTON — House Democrats released a sweeping report Tuesday that says President Donald Trump placed his political interests above national interests in his conduct toward Ukraine, findings that
will serve as the foundation for debate over whether the 45th president should be impeached and removed from office.
The report, which said the president “sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security,” was approved by the House Intelligence Committee on a party-line vote Tuesday evening and sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which plans its first impeachment hearing today.
After the report was released, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said “the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing” by the president, adding that the report “reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing.”
The 300-page report from Democrats on the intelligence panel makes the case that Trump misused the power of his office and, in the course of their investigation, obstructed Congress by stonewalling the proceedings. Based on two months of investigation, the report contains evidence and testimony from current and former U.S. officials.
“The impeachment inquiry has found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection,” said Chairman Adam Schiff in the report’s preface.
In doing so, “the President placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States,” the report said.
The report does not render a judgment on whether Trump’s actions stemming from a July 25 phone call with Ukraine president rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” warranting impeachment, leaving that to Congress to decide.
Instead, the report provides a detailed account of a shadow diplomacy run by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, resulting in layers of allegations, which can be distilled into specific acts such as bribery, extortion or obstruction, and the accusation that Trump abused his power.
“With the release of our report, the American people can review for themselves the evidence detailing President Trump’s betrayal of the public trust,” Schiff said in a joint statement with the chairmen of the Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees, who drafted the report.
Ahead of the release, Republicans defended the president in a rebuttal claiming Trump never intended to pressure Ukraine when he asked for a “favor” — investigations of Democrats and former Vice President Joe Biden, who is now running for president.
They say the military aid the White House was withholding was not being used as leverage, as Democrats claim, and add that the $400 million was ultimately released, although only after a congressional outcry.
“They are trying to impeach President Trump because some unelected bureaucrats chafed at an elected president’s ‘outside the beltway’ approach to diplomacy,” Republican Reps. Devin Nunes of California, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Michael McCaul of Texas said in a statement.
Asked if impeachment proceedings cast a cloud over his work at the NATO summit beginning in London, Trump lashed out at Democrats.
“I think it’s very unpatriotic for the Democrats to put on a performance where they do that,” he said. “I do. I think it’s a bad thing for our country. Impeachment wasn’t supposed to be used that way ... Does it cast a cloud? Well, if it does, then the Democrats have done a very great disservice to the country, which they have. They’ve wasted a lot of time.”
Trump also dismissed an idea that has been floated in Congress of censuring him for his conduct toward Ukraine rather than impeaching him.
“I heard about it,” Trump said. “Now they want to go to censure because they have no case for impeachment. So they want to go to censure. I don’t want them to go to censure ... I don’t mind being censured if you do something wrong. I did nothing wrong.”
In prefacing the report, Schiff draws deeply from history, citing George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and other Founding Fathers, to explain grounds for impeachment.
“Rather than a mechanism to overturn an election, impeachment was explicitly contemplated as a remedy of last resort for a president who fails to faithfully execute his oath of office ‘to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,’ ” he wrote.
The report lays the foundation for the House Judiciary Committee to assess potential articles of impeachment starting today. Trump said he will not watch the judiciary panel’s hearing, saying it’s “all nonsense, they’re just wasting their time.”
Possible grounds for impeachment are focused on whether Trump abused his office as he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July 25 phone call to open investigations into Trump’s political rivals. At the time, Trump was withholding $400 million in military aid, jeopardizing key support as Ukraine faces an aggressive Russia at its border.
The report also accuses Trump of obstructing the House constitutional authority to conduct the impeachment inquiry, becoming the “first and only” president in U.S. history to “openly and indiscriminately” defy the proceedings by instructing officials not to comply with subpoenas for documents and testimony.
The next step comes when the Judiciary Committee gavels open its own hearing, with legal experts to assess the findings and consider potential articles of impeachment ahead of a possible vote by the full House by Christmas. That would presumably send it to the Senate for a trial in January.