Democrats Announce Impeachment Articles; Trump Responds | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is James Barrett.

    After weeks of hearings and amid troubling polling trends in battleground states, the House Democrats officially announced on Tuesday that they are bringing two articles of impeachment against President Trump. The president responded online by pointing to a key fact he says Democrats continue to ignore.

    In a press conference Tuesday, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) announced that the Democrats are bringing two articles of impeachment against Trump: "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress."

    Trump's alleged abuse of power, the Democrats contend, relates to his attempt to "pressure" Ukraine into investigating his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, which Nadler described in the press conference as having "compromised our national security and threatened the integrity of our elections."

    The Democrats also maintain that the president's unwillingness to cooperate with their inquiry is grounds for impeachment.

    "Throughout this inquiry, he has attempted to conceal the evidence from Congress and from the American people," said Nadler, in comments reported by CNBC. "Our president holds the ultimate public trust. When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country, he endangers the Constitution, he endangers our democracy and he endangers our national security."

    Neither charge is specified in the Constitution's impeachment clause, which reads: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

    Nadler suggested in his statement, however, that the charges outlined in the Democrats' two impeachment articles both constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors."

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) also had a chance to make a statement Tuesday, declaring that the inquiry he led provided "overwhelming and uncontested" evidence of Trump's alleged "misconduct."

    While the Democrats expressed great confidence in their "overwhelming" case against Trump, they notably took no questions from the press following their announcement of their impeachment articles.

    Trump responded to the Democrats much-anticipated announcement by slamming the 2020 "interference" allegation as "ridiculous" and pointing to the repeated assertions by Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that Trump did not "pressure" them to conduct investigations in order to receive U.S. military aid, as the Democrats allege.


    "Nadler just said that I 'pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 Election,'" Trump tweeted. "Ridiculous, and he knows that is not true. Both the President & Foreign Minister of Ukraine said, many times, that there 'WAS NO PRESSURE.' Nadler and the Dems know this, but refuse to acknowledge!"

    Trump followed up that tweet with his most frequently posted two-word phrase: "WITCH HUNT!"

    After focusing their rhetoric for weeks on alleged "bribery" by Trump, Democrats notably chose not to present that more specific charge against Trump in the articles, opting for the far more vague "abuse of power."

    During the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings last week, liberal Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz addressed the Democrats' "abuse of power" allegation, dismissing the idea that a president could be impeached for such a "vague" offense.

    "The Republicans should have challenged Professor Feldman's assertion that 'abuse of office' is a constitutional basis for impeachment," Dershowitz tweeted Wednesday. "These words do not appear in the Constitution and such vague criteria were rejected by the Framers."

    Trump followed up his initial tweets by taking aim at Schiff, who he slammed for falsely quoting Trump's July 25 call with Zelensky, a whistleblower complaint about which prompted the Democrats' impeachment inquiry.

    "Shifty Schiff, a totally corrupt politician, made up a horrible and fraudulent statement, read it to Congress, and said those words came from me. He got caught, was very embarrassed, yet nothing happened to him for committing this fraud. He'll eventually have to answer for this!" Trump tweeted, adding: "Read the Transcripts! 'us' is a reference to USA, not me!"

    In response to reports based on leaked information about the whistleblower complaint, Trump released the full complaint along with the transcript of the July 25 call, which showed that while Trump did ask Zelensky to "look into" the Biden allegations, he imposed no "quid pro quo" as Democrats have claimed.

    "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that," Trump said. "So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me."

    In regard to allegations that Ukraine was involved in 2016 U.S. election interference, Trump asked Zelensky to "do us a favor" by "find[ing] out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine."