The House on Tuesday released a landmark impeachment report outlining evidence of what it called President Trump’s wrongdoing toward Ukraine — findings that will push Congress toward a debate over whether the 45th president should be removed from office.
Democrats on the Intelligence Committee are making the case that Trump engaged in behavior violating his oath of office and, in the course of their investigation, obstructed Congress by stonewalling the proceedings.
“The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election,” the report stated.
“President Trump’s scheme subverted US foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign.”
“The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election,” the report asserted.
“To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical US military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.”
Republicans have defended the president — claiming Trump never intended to pressure Ukraine when he asked for a “favor” with investigations of Democrats and Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
They say the military aid that the White House was withholding was not being used as leverage, as Democrats claim. The $391 million was ultimately released.
Trump, attending the NATO meeting in London, slammed Democrats, and specifically Rep. Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.
“I think he’s a maniac. I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being. I think he grew up with a complex for lots of reasons that are obvious. I think he’s a very sick man,” Trump said during a press briefing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I think it’s a disgrace. I think the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves. If you look at impeachment, the word impeachment, here there was nothing wrong, nothing done wrong. It was a perfect conversation with a very nice gentleman, the president of Ukraine. The conversation was perfect,” Trump said, before warning that a dangerous precedent was being set.
“This is what you’re going to impeach the president of the United States on? The Democrats have gone crazy and you know what? They have to be careful because when the shoe is on the other foot, and some day, hopefully in the very long distant future, you’ll have a Democrat president, you’ll have a Republican House and they’ll do the same thing because somebody picked an orange out of a refrigerator and you don’t like it so let’s go and impeach them. That’s not the way our country is supposed to be run,” he declared.
With Associated Press