Congressional Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday.Susan Walsh/The Associated Press
Congressional Democrats have unveiled two articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for pressuring Ukraine to interfere in next year’s election and then stonewalling a congressional investigation into his actions.
The move makes Mr. Trump only the fourth president to face impeachment.
“Our President holds the ultimate public trust. When he betrays that trust and puts himself before our country, he endangers the Constitution, he endangers our democracy and he endangers our national security,” Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee, said at a Capitol Hill news conference announcing the articles with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders.
The judiciary committee will debate the articles of impeachment later this week, setting up a vote by the Democratic-controlled House next week. If the House votes to impeach, Mr. Trump will face a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate. It would take a two-thirds majority of Senators to convict and remove him from office.
In congressional hearings last month, U.S. diplomats testified that Mr. Trump had withheld US$400-million of military aid to Ukraine and a White House invitation for that country’s President as part of a campaign to put pressure on Kyiv to investigate both Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential candidate, and a debunked conspiracy theory that the former Ukrainian government had helped the Democratic Party in the 2016 election.
Mr. Trump ordered officials in his administration not to co-operate with the congressional investigation into his dealings with Ukraine.
Mr. Nadler accused Mr. Trump of using “the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit” and then undertaking an “unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry.”
“WITCH HUNT!” Mr. Trump responded on Twitter to Mr. Nadler’s announcement.
The articles of impeachment only directly relate to the Ukraine scandal and not Mr. Trump’s attempts to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who led an earlier investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Adam Schiff, Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, said he had been reluctant to impeach Mr. Trump, which some members of the party’s congressional caucus wanted to do after Mr. Mueller’s report earlier this year. But he said the President’s Ukraine actions had left no other option.
“We stand here today because the President’s continuing abuse of his power has left us no choice. To do nothing would make ourselves complicit in the President’s abuse of his high office, the public trust and our national security,” Mr. Schiff said.
Two previous presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, were impeached by the House, but were not convicted by the Senate and remained in office. In the case of Richard Nixon, the House judiciary committee drafted articles of impeachment, but Mr. Nixon resigned before they could be voted on by the full House.
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