Impeachment Report Summary: Panels Find 'Significant Miscond
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:07 pmThe House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry report is 300 pages long, but the report includes a single page executive summary that concisely sums up the Democrats' case against President Donald Trump.
The committee says Trump's "scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign."
It says Trump "demanded" that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy publicly announce a corruption investigation into 2020 Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden. The other investigation was to look into a debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine — not Russia — that meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
U.S. President Donald Trump leaves in his limousine after a reception at Downing Street, ahead of the NATO summit in Watford, in London, Britain, Dec. 3, 2019.
In exchange for promises of investigations, Trump would grant Zelenskiy a meeting in the Oval Office, and release nearly $400 million of much-needed military aid to Ukraine.
The summary says Trump's scheme was undertaken with the "knowledge and approval" of several senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who publicly admitted to reporters what Trump was doing and told people to "get over it."
The executive report accuses Trump of continuing to encourage Ukraine and others to engage in election interference.
It says Trump's actions compelled several House committees to "undertake a serious, sober, and expeditious investigation" into whether the president "placed his personal interests above those of the country." The summary cited the U.S. founding fathers in saying the remedy for such actions by a president is impeachment.
In the last paragraph of the executive summary, Democrats accuse Trump of engaging in an "unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry."
It thanked the "patriotic and courageous public servants who provided the committees with direct evidence of the president's actions," calling those actions "significant misconduct."