House Democrats on Tuesday revealed that they will draft two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
One will charge him with abuse of power and the second with obstruction of Congress.
Both articles relate to Trump's actions with respect to Ukraine. For the last several months, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has investigated Trump's efforts to strongarm Ukraine into acceding to his political demands while withholding vital military aid and a White House meeting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky desperately sought.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference on Tuesday that lawmakers are impeaching Trump to "honor our oath of office."
Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Trump's efforts compromised US national security and "threatened the integrity of our elections."
Throughout the course of the inquiry, he added, Trump "attempted to conceal evidence" from the investigative committees. His actions, Nadler said, "endangers our Constitution, endangers our democracy, and endangers our national security."
"Today, in service to our duty to the Constitution and our country, the House Committee on the Judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment charging the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, for committing high crimes and misdemeanors," Nadler said.
"We do not take this action lightly, but we have taken an oath to defend the Constitution, and unlike President Trump, we understand that our duty first and foremost is to protect the Constitution and to protect the interests of the American people," he added. "The integrity of our next election is at risk from a president who already sought foreign interference in the 2016 and 2020 elections and who consistently puts himself above country."
At the center of the impeachment inquiry is a July 25 phone call, during which Trump repeatedly pressed Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, for corruption in connection with the latter's stint as a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
Trump also pressured Zelensky to look into a bogus conspiracy theory suggesting Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election and is in possession of a missing Democratic "server" that purportedly contains incriminating evidence against Democrats.
There is no evidence that either of these issues has merit, and Trump's phone call was the subject of an explosive whistleblower complaint — which sparked the impeachment inquiry — claiming the president actively solicited foreign interference in the upcoming presidential election.
The House Intelligence Committee, spearheaded by California Rep. Adam Schiff, conducted a series of open and closed-door hearings with career national security and foreign policy officers who testified that the phone call was just one data point in a months-long pressure campaign that was largely led by Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, at the president's direction.
Gordon Sondland, the US's ambassador to the European Union, also testified that "everyone," including top brass at the White House and State Department, "was in the loop" on Trump's shadow policy agenda.
Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Tuesday that "to the members of Congress, this is not a question of fact because the facts are not seriously contested." Instead, he said, "it is a question of duty."
By conditioning military aid and a White House meeting on Zelensky caving to his demands, Trump "undermined our national security and the integrity of our elections, and he does so still," Schiff said.
The evidence of Trump's "misconduct" is "overwhelming and uncontested," the California congressman said.
