House Judiciary Chair Rep. Jerry Nadler announces the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, US Capitol, Washington, December 10, 2019

The House Judiciary Committee’s Democrats file articles of impeachment against Donald Trump over his alleged abuse of power, pressing Ukraine to investigate his political rivals for his personal gain.

The nine-page document summarizes that Trump was “corruptly soliciting” election assistance from the Ukraine government when he sought the investigations to tarnish Presidential candidate Joe Biden and to cover up Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election. It cites Trump’s freeze on $391 million in security assistance to Kiev and refusal of a White House meeting for President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In all of this, President Trump abused the powers of the presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. He has also betrayed the nation by abusing his office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections.

The Democrats also charge Trump with contempt of Congress, detailing his orders to US officials to refuse subpoenas for testimony and documents as “unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance” of the House’s Constitutional rights.

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The Judiciary Committee is likely to discuss and vote on the articles by Thursday. With a Democratic majority, the Committee is almost certain to send the charges to the full House for approval next week, setting up a trial in the Senate in January.

The Democrats decided not to file a third charge of obstruction of justice over Trump’s attempt to block the Trump-Russia inquiry of Special Counsel Mueller.

Mueller’s report in April set out substantial evidence of at least eight cases where Trump obstructed or attempted to obstruct the investigation. The Special Counsel said he could not file a criminal charge because of the Justice Department’s guidance that a sitting President cannot be indicted; however, he said Congress could take further action.

The Democrats decided to leave out the charge to keep focus on the Trump-Ukraine affair. The measure also denies Trump and his allies an opportunity for diversion through their standard claims of “hoax” and “witch hunt”, used to bury the Mueller Report.

Instead Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jerry Nadler emphasized that the two articles of impeachment were part of a pattern of behavior by Trump involving foreign powers in US elections, including the 2016 Presidential vote.

The Democrats also decided not to define Trump’s abuse of power as bribery, specifically listed in the Constitution as an impeachable offense.

The charges stem from an investigation that began after a formal complaint — by the CIA liaison with the White House over Ukraine — about Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy asking for the investigations.

In two months of hearings by the House Intelligence Committee, 17 current and former US officials defied the White House orders to testify of a campaign by Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani since November 2018. They spoke of an “irregular channel” of US foreign policy threatening both American and Ukrainian security.

The Intelligence Committee summarized the evidence for the Judiciary Committee, which took evidence from Constitutional legal scholars about the articles of impeachment.

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Judiciary Committee chair Nadler said Tuesday:

Our president holds the ultimate public trust. When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country, he endangers the Constitution, he endangers our democracy and he endangers our national security.

Trump responded: