Impeachment Today: Local Rally Set for Sunday As Dems Announce Charges Against Trump
Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
San Diego activist organizations, including Indivisible chapters, have announced a rally on Sunday, December 15 at Noon at Waterfront Park in support of an expected vote by the entire House of Representatives next week.
For more information, and to RSVP for the rally, sign up here.
This morning’s announcement was made at a press conference hosted by the six House Democratic chairs who have led the investigations against the President this year, along Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Today, in service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Committee on the Judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the President of the United States Donald J. Trump with committing high crimes and misdemeanors," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said.
The articles of impeachment charge President Trump with abusing the powers of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals ahead of the 2020 election while withholding a White House meeting and $400 million in US security aid from Kiev. And they say that Trump then obstructed the investigation into his misconduct with a blanket blockade of subpoenas and refusing to allow key senior officials to testify before Congress.
Tuesday's announcement sets the stage for a dramatic impeachment vote on the House floor next week, after the House Judiciary Committee debates and approves the articles in sessions beginning on Thursday.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff told the assembled media that the evidence against Trump was "overwhelming and uncontested," arguing Democrats cannot wait for the judicial branch to rule on the witnesses and documents the Trump administration is blocking from Congress.
"The argument why don't you just wait amounts to this: why don't you just let him cheat in one more election?" said Schiff, "Despite everything we have uncovered, the President's misconduct continues to this day, unapologetically and right now."
Ultimately, the Judiciary Committee opted for quality over quantity in deciding on charges as legal experts brought in over the weekend told them this presented the clearest path to avoid legal challenges.
Democrats had debated adding a third article of impeachment on obstruction of justice, which would have captured the allegations against Trump that were detailed in former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
Pelosi and her top lieutenants ultimately decided to keep the articles focused narrowly on Ukraine, out of concern for moderates who only backed an impeachment inquiry once the Ukraine scandal spilled into public view.
But the episodes detailed in the Mueller report are expected to be incorporated into the charges that Democrats are laying out on Tuesday. In the Judiciary Committee, Democrats expressed Trump's actions in Ukraine as part of a broader pattern of misconduct that began during the 2016 election and still continues today.
Confused about the Democrat’s case? This clip below summarizes the case against Trump in less than five minutes.
https://twitter.com/QasimRashid/status/1204164336681463808?s=20
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Click here for the proposed text of the two articles of impeachment.
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UPDATE: Joan McCarter at Daily Kos has the prognosis for what will happen in the Senate:
The House is likely to vote on the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump announced Tuesday morning by the end of next week, wrapping up its part in the proceedings before the Christmas recess. The Senate, however, is unlikely to act so quickly. On both sides of the aisle there seems to be consensus to put it off...
...There's one person who wants this to happen fast, however: Donald Trump. White House aides have reportedly been pushing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do it faster. That's what CNN has been hearing, and it's what Politico has been hearing. Their source, who is "familiar" with the White House's thinking, says that it is "actively seeking" to speed the trial up and have it prior to the recess.
That's not likely to happen. For one thing, McConnell wants to screw Senate Democrats. And he can screw four of them—Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren, along with independent Bernie Sanders—who are all running for president and need to be in Iowa and New Hampshire for the early-February contests. If he can interfere in that, he'll do it happily. It's almost certain that the Senate will delay the hearing until January.
Meanwhile, at the White House...
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1204414691910410242?s=20
That’s what Duncan Hunter said. How’d that turn out?
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