CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT

Report by intelligence committee Democrats makes broad accusations

WASHINGTON — In a sweeping impeachment report, the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday outlined evidence of “significant misconduct” by President Donald Trump toward Ukraine, findings that will now underscore a debate over whether the 45th president should be removed from office.

The 300-page report from Democrats on the committee makes the case that Trump misused the power of his office for personal political gain and, in the course of their investigation, obstructed Congress by stonewalling the proceedings like no other president in history.

The report does not render a judgment on whether Trump’s actions stemming from a July 25 phone call with Ukraine rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” warranting impeachment. That is for Congress to decide. Debate will begin Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

“We have a very difficult decision ahead of us to make,” said Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in releasing the findings. “This kind of conduct by a president of the United States, putting his own personal political interest above the interest of the American people, is exactly why they prescribed a remedy as extraordinary as the remedy of impeachment.”

In a statement, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said, “Chairman Schiff and the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump.” She said the report “reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing.”

The president, at a NATO meeting in London, called the impeachment effort by rival Democrats “unpatriotic,” and he said he wouldn’t be watching Wednesday’s hearing.

Republicans defended the president in their own 123-page rebuttal claiming Trump never intended to pressure Ukraine when he asked for a “favor” — investigations of Democrats, Joe Biden and his son Hunter. They say the military aid the White House was withholding was not being used as leverage, as Democrats claim — and besides, the $400 million was ultimately released, although only after a congressional outcry. Democrats, they argue, just want to undo the 2016 election.

The “Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report” provides a detailed account of a shadow diplomacy run by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, resulting in layers of allegations that can be distilled into specific acts, like bribery or obstruction, and the more amorphous allegation that Trump abused his power by putting his interests above the nation.

Based on two months of investigation sparked by a still-anonymous government whistleblower’s complaint, the report relies heavily on testimony from current and former U.S. officials who defied White House orders not to appear.

The inquiry found that Trump “solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection,” Schiff wrote in the report’s preface. In doing so, the president “sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security,” the report said.

The House intelligence panel voted later Tuesday, in a party-line tally, to send the document to the Judiciary Committee.

Along with evidence revealed in earlier testimony, the report included previously unreleased cellphone records, including Giuliani’s calls raising fresh questions about interactions with the top Republican on the intelligence panel, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, and the White House.

For Republicans falling in line behind Trump, the inquiry is simply a “hoax.” Trump criticized the House for pushing forward with the proceedings while he was overseas, a breach of political decorum that traditionally leaves partisan differences at the water’s edge.

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy called on Democrats to end the impeachment “nightmare.”