‘President Trump put himself before country,’ Nadler said repeatedly as hearing began.
The House Judiciary Committee opened a new phase in the impeachment inquiry on Monday as Democrats accused President Trump of violating his oath of office by pursuing his own political interests above those of the nation.
“President Trump put himself before country,” Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said, repeating the phrase five times during his opening statement as the panel prepared to hear evidence.
His Republican counterpart, Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, said the Democrats were out to get “a president they don’t like” from the moment he took office regardless of the evidence. “They spent two years trying to figure out what do we impeach him on,” he said.
After the opening statements, lawyers for both sides will make their opening argument for and against impeachment, and separately outline and analyze the information gathered by the House Intelligence Committee during its investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to help him incriminate his Democratic political rivals. While the White House refuses to participate, Mr. Trump’s Republican allies will argue that the case is a partisan witch hunt.
The hearing could influence how House Democrats draft their articles of impeachment this week.
The hearing may be an important factor in shaping the articles of impeachment that House Democrats are drafting against Mr. Trump amid an intense debate about how expansive the charges of high crimes and misdemeanors should be.
Democrats appear poised to accuse Mr. Trump of abuse of power and bribery for pressuring Ukraine to help him incriminate Democratic rivals while withholding American security aid. They also expect to charge him with obstructing the congressional investigation by defying subpoenas, blocking current and former administration officials from testifying, and trying to intimidate those who have.
Less clear is whether they will include charges of obstruction of justice for trying to impede the Russia investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. In his report last spring, Mr. Mueller submitted evidence of 10 instances of possible obstruction but said he could not judge whether they were illegal. Attorney General William P. Barr, a Trump appointee, declared that the president’s actions were not illegal, but Democrats dismiss his judgment as skewed and partisan.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he and his fellow Democrats would not decide the shape of the articles of impeachment until after hearing evidence on Monday.
“There are possible drafts that various people are writing,” Mr. Nadler said on “State of the Union” on CNN on Sunday. “But the fact is we’re not going to make any decision as to how broad the articles should be — as to what they contain, what the wording is — until after the hearing.”
Republicans hope to turn the tables on Democrats.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee intend to use the hearing to complain about how the Democrats have handled the inquiry and accuse them of rigging the process to achieve a preordained outcome rather than to get to the truth.
Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the committee, called on Mr. Nadler over the weekend to delay the hearing because Republicans were provided with thousands of pages of documents related to the inquiry only 48 hours beforehand.
“Chairman Nadler has no choice but to postpone Monday’s hearing in the wake of a last-minute document transmission that shows just how far Democrats have gone to pervert basic fairness,” Mr. Collins said in a statement.
Some Republicans may also use the hearing to accuse Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, of inappropriately obtaining phone records that documented the dates and duration of calls involving his Republican counterpart, Representative Devin Nunes of California.
Phone records cited in the Intelligence Committee’s report indicated that Mr. Nunes was in contact with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and one of his associates, Lev Parnas, who helped Mr. Giuliani with his efforts to turn up incriminating information about Democrats in Ukraine.
Trump weighs in from the sidelines.
The White House refused to participate in Monday’s hearing, arguing that it was tilted against Mr. Trump and part of an illegitimate effort to overturn his election. But that does not mean Mr. Trump himself will not participate — at least via social media.
Given that the president posted or reposted nearly 100 messages on Twitter on Sunday, most of which were defending his actions or attacking his accusers, he could easily do the same on Monday, weighing in from afar with his own play-by-play commentary for his 67 million followers.
“Less than 48 hours before start of the Impeachment Hearing Hoax, on Monday, the No Due Process, Do Nothing Democrats are, believe it or not, changing the Impeachment Guidelines because the facts are not on their side,” Mr. Trump wrote on Sunday. “When you can’t win the game, change the rules!” He did not explain what he meant about changing the rules. The committee released a report on Saturday discussing the constitutional grounds for impeachment.
Most of Mr. Trump’s barrage on Sunday was retweets of his supporters, but he once again made clear that he expected nothing but complete loyalty from Fox News.
“Don’t get why @FoxNews puts losers on like @RepSwalwell (who got ZERO as presidential candidate before quitting), Pramila Jayapal, David Cicilline and others who are Radical Left Haters?” he wrote, naming several House Democrats. “The Dems wouldn’t let @FoxNews get near their bad ratings debates, yet Fox panders. Pathetic!”
Catch up on some important background on the impeachment inquiry.
The president and his advisers repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and his government to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Here’s a timeline of events since January.
A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.
transcript
Who Are the Main Characters in the Whistle-Blower’s Complaint?
President Trump’s personal lawyer. The prosecutor general of Ukraine. Joe Biden’s son. These are just some of the names mentioned in the whistle-blower’s complaint. What were their roles? We break it down.
Congressman: “Sir, let me repeat my question: Did you ever speak to the president about this complaint?” Congress is investigating allegations that President Trump pushed a foreign government to dig up dirt on his Democratic rivals. “It’s just a Democrat witch hunt. Here we go again.” At the heart of an impeachment inquiry is a nine-page whistle-blower complaint that names over two dozen people. Not counting the president himself, these are the people that appear the most: First, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. According to documents and interviews, Giuliani has been involved in shadowy diplomacy on behalf of the president’s interests. He encouraged Ukrainian officials to investigate the Biden family’s activities in the country, plus other avenues that could benefit Trump like whether the Ukrainians intentionally helped the Democrats during the 2016 election. It was an agenda he also pushed on TV. “So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden.” “Of course I did!” A person Giuliani worked with, Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s former prosecutor general. He pushed for investigations that would also benefit Giuliani and Trump. Lutsenko also discussed conspiracy theories about the Bidens in the U.S. media. But he later walked back his allegations, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens. This is where Hunter Biden comes in, the former vice president’s son. He served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company run by this guy, who’s had some issues with the law. While Biden was in office, he along with others, called for the dismissal of Lutsenko’s predecessor, a prosecutor named Viktor Shokin, whose office was overseeing investigations into the company that Hunter Biden was involved with. Shokin was later voted out by the Ukrainian government. Lutsenko replaced him, but was widely criticized for corruption himself. When a new president took office in May, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky said that he’d replace Lutsenko. Giuliani and Trump? Not happy. They viewed Lutsenko as their ally. During a July 25 call between Trump and the new Ukrainian president, Trump defended him, saying, “I heard you had a prosecutor who is very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair.” In that phone call, Trump also allegedly asked his counterpart to continue the investigation into Joe Biden, who is his main rival in the 2020 election. Zelensky has publicly denied feeling pressured by Trump. “In other words, no pressure.” And then finally, Attorney General William Barr, who also came up in the July 25 call. In the reconstructed transcript, Trump repeatedly suggested that Zelensky’s administration could work with Barr and Giuliani to investigate the Bidens and other matters of political interest to Trump. Since the whistle-blower complaint was made public, Democrats have criticized Barr for dismissing allegations that Trump had violated campaign finance laws during his call with Zelensky and not passing along the complaint to Congress. House Democrats have now subpoenaed several people mentioned in the complaint, as an impeachment inquiry into the president’s conduct continues.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in September that the House would open a formal impeachment proceeding and last week directed Democrats to draft articles of impeachment. Here’s how the impeachment process works, and here’s why political influence in foreign policy matters.
House committees have issued subpoenas to the White House, the Defense Department, the budget office and other agencies for documents related to the impeachment investigation. Here’s the evidence that has been collected so far.
Read about the Democrats’ rules to govern impeachment proceedings.
2019-12-09 14:27:40Z
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