Donald Trump at the NATO leaders’ meeting in the United Kingdom, December 3, 2019
The House Intelligence Committee publishes its report summarizing impeachable offenses by Donald Trump, finding he sought to “use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election”.
After more than two months of investigation, 17 witnesses in closed-door session, and 12 in open hearings, the Committee issued its report on Tuesday. In 300 pages, the document detailed the months-long campaign by Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into a statement of investigations to tarnish Presidential candidate Joe Biden and to cover up Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.
The report, adopted on partisan lines after Republicans dismissed the hearings as a sham, is forthright in its conclusion that Trump threatened US and Ukrainian national security as he sought to undermine American democracy.
In a narrative account of the evidence from documents and the witnesses — saying it was striking that all of them were in accord on key points — the committee found that Trump had made demands of Ukraine for the statement of investigations. Through intermediaries, he refused a White House visit to new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and in mid-July he froze almost $400 million in security assistance to Kiev.
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The committee noted the catalyst for the inquiry, a formal complaint by a CIA official about a July 25 call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy for the investigations. However, the hearings had established a far wider, months-long effort by Trump, Giuliani, and their associates to press Kiev and remove US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was seen as an obstacle to the campaign.
The report found Trump’s “scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential re-election campaign”.
It also set out the impeachable offensive of obstruction of Congress through the White House’s attempt — defied by the current and former US officials who testified — to block witnesses and provision of documents, including orders to defy subpoenas.
The damage to our system of checks and balances, and to the balance of power within our three branches of government, will be long-lasting and potentially irrevocable if the president’s ability to stonewall Congress goes unchecked.
Any future President will feel empowered to resist an investigation into their own wrongdoing, malfeasance or corruption, and the result will be a nation at far greater risk of all three.
The decision on articles of impeachment rests with the Judiciary Committee, which begins hearings on Wednesday; however, the Intelligence Committee summarized, “The Founding Fathers prescribed a remedy for a chief executive who places his personal interests above those of the country: impeachment.”
Today the Judiciary Committee will hear from constitutional lawyers who will set out impeachable offenses and evaluate whether Trump’s alleged actions fit the definition.
In addition to the offenses of bribery and obstruction of Congress, the Judiciary Committee may consider an offense of obstruction of justice over Trump’s attempts to block the Trump-Russia inquiry of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The Intelligence Committee’s report may also put pressure on high-level officials. It documents how Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Energy Secretary Rick Perry helped implement Trump’s effort and how Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo knew of the campaign.
Trump Responds With Personal Attacks
The Trump camp continued its tactic of circumventing the witnesses and documents by declaring the inquiry illegitimate.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said the Intelligence Committee’s report was the conclusion of a “one-sided sham process”: “Chairman [Adam] Schiff’s report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing.”
Before the report was issued, Trump — in the UK for a NATO leaders’ meeting — tried to grab the news cycle by attacking Rep. Schiff as “deranged” and “sick”: “[This is] done for purely political gain. They’re going to see whether or not they can do something in 2020 because otherwise they’re going to lose.”
But additional evidence in the report pointed to problems for the Republicans, rather than the Democrats. Among dozens of calls this spring with Giuliani, documented by telephone company records, were conversation with Rep. Devin Nunes — the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee — as well as senior White House officials.
Schiff said records showed “considerable coordination among the parties, including the White House” over the Trump-Giuliani initiative.
The calls took place as Giuliani was pursuing a disinformation campaign against Ambassador Yovanovitch. They included Giuliahi’s now-indicted business associate Lev Parnas, who brokered meetings with current and former Ukrainian officials; Nunes; Nunes’s former aide Kash Patel, who works on the National Security Council; and unnamed officials at the White House and the Office of Management and Budget — suspected by Democratic investigators of being Trump or Mulvaney.