The Just-Released House Impeachment Report Says—Surprise—Trump Abused His Power
After three months of investigations and hearings, House Democrats released an impeachment report on Wednesday. The report's main takeaway: "President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection," and he "placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States."
That conclusion isn't surprising to anyone who's been following the impeachment hearings. The evidence and testimonies brought before Congress consistently supported the whistleblower accusation that set the impeachment hearings in motion, namely that Donald Trump withheld aid in order to bribe Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into opening an investigation into former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham immediately dismissed the 300-page document claiming that "Chairman Schiff’s report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing."
The report describes an "unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry," in light of Trump's efforts to suppress documents and issuing a blanket order for administration officials not to cooperate with Congress. Additionally, it accuses Trump of attempting to intimidate witnesses, reading, "President Trump issued threats, openly discussed possible retaliation, made insinuations about witnesses’ character and patriotism, and subjected them to mockery and derision." It also contains new information, including extensive call logs between Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Trump ally and top Intelligence Committee Republican, Devin Nunes of California.
While the House report doesn't specifically call for impeachment, it does lay out a course of action for Congress to do so going forward. And the hearings themselves are still ongoing. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee will hear from multiple constitutional scholars on whether or not they believe Trump meets the historical standard for impeachment.
The report concludes: "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."
And everything else you need to know about the Trump impeachment inquiry.
Originally Appeared on GQ
