Full Impeachment Report Published: Trump Tried to ‘Muzzle Witnesses’
The House Judiciary Committee released its full 658-page report on the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the early hours of Monday, ahead of consideration by the full House later this week.
Thereportexplains the decision to charge Trump with two articles of impeachment—abuse of power and obstruction of justice. In the report, the committee accuses Trump of “multiple federal crimes,” including criminal bribery and wire fraud, and writes that the president has “realized the Framers’ worst nightmare” with his alleged misconduct.
The committee concludes “that President Trump has placed his personal, political interests above our national security, our free and fair elections, and our systems of checks and balances. He has engaged in a pattern of misconduct that will continue if left unchecked. Accordingly, President Trump should be impeached and removed from office.”
The document includes reports previously issued from the House Intelligence Committee that lay out the range of evidence against the president, as well as the Judiciary Committee’s explanation of the constitutional grounds for impeachment.
The Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), uses part one of four of the report to detail the processes it used in its investigation against Trump. Part two examines the grounds for the impeachment as laid out in the Constitution.
The third part explores the Democrats’ case that Trump abused the power of his office to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate his domestic political rival—former Vice President Joe Biden—ahead of the 2020 election. Part four of the report makes the case that the president obstructed Congress’ ability to hold his administration accountable by refusing to comply with requests for documents and testimony.
On his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the report states: “Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal.” The committee contends that the president “betrayed the people of this nation” and should be removed from office.
On the obstruction charge, the report states that Trump did “everything in his power” to obstruct the impeachment inquiry, saying that, under his orders, the White House and other agencies “refused to produce a single document in response to Congressional subpoenas.”
The report went on: “President Trump also attempted to muzzle witnesses, threatening to damage their careers if they agreed to testify, and even attacked one witness during her live testimony before Congress.”
However, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, wrote in the report that the articles failed to establish any impeachable offense, and argued that “an accusation of abuse of power must be based on a higher and more concrete standard than conduct that ‘ignored and injured the interests of the Nation.’”
The release came as the House prepares to consider the two articles of impeachment, expected be voted on this Wednesday.
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