House Democrats announced they will vote on two articles of impeachment against President Trump that accuse him of “high crimes and misdemeanors” centering on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, said Tuesday the articles would get a committee vote this week and would “make a recommendation to the full House.”
The fast-paced impeachment reflects a desire by Democrats to finish the investigation by the end of the year. The House is scheduled to adjourn on Dec. 20.
Nadler said Democrats needed to act urgently to prevent the president from undermining the 2020 election.
Nadler was joined at a lectern in the ornate Rayburn Room in the Capitol by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as the leaders of six committees that have been conducting a broad investigation into the president, his finances, and his businesses.
But the impeachment articles exclude all of those investigations and center on Ukraine.
Democrats accuse the president of “soliciting foreign interference” in the upcoming election by withholding critical security aid from Ukraine in order to get the country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
“It is an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit,” Nadler said.
Nadler said the obstruction article is based on Trump’s refusal to provide documents and allow witness testimony from current and former administration officials.
Nadler called this “unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry.”
Trump’s reelection campaign wasted no time blasting the House impeachment announcement.
“For months, Nancy Pelosi said she wouldn’t move forward on impeachment because it was too divisive and it needed bipartisan support,” said Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale. “Well, it is divisive and only the Democrats are pushing it, but she’s doing it anyway. Americans don’t agree with this rank partisanship, but Democrats are putting on this political theater because they don’t have a viable candidate for 2020 and they know it.”
