WASHINGTON DC-(MaraviPost)- A key committee of the Democrat-led US House of Representatives is poised to approve two articles of impeachment against PresidentDonald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
After working late into the night on Wednesday in an unusually solemn meeting, the House Judiciary Committee continued debating the impeachment charges for more than 12 hours on Thursday before unexpectedly breaking for an overnight recess. The panel’s chairman, Jerrold Nadler, said the panel will reconvene for a vote on the impeachment articles at 10am (15:00GMT) on Friday. If approved, the articles would then go to the full House for a vote next week.
“President Trump has not only abused his power in the upcoming election he has used a foreign power to do it,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, a senior Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee.
The looming House vote sets in motion a process in a divided Congress that is politically risky for both Democrats and Republicans ahead of national elections in 2020.
Democrats have introduced two articles of impeachment, charging that Trump abused the powers of his office by soliciting the interference of Ukraine in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
The first article charges Trump and his aides pressured Ukraine to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic candidate, to help Trump’s re-election.
Trump also sought an investigation by Ukraine into a discredited theory promoted by Russia that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election.
Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to go along with the scheme by withholding a White House meeting for the newly elected Ukraine president and freezing $391 million in military aid, Democrats said.
As a result, Democrats allege Trump – through “corrupt motives” – injured US national security to “obtain an improper personal political benefit”.
Trump meets with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at the InterContinental Barclay New York hotel during the United Nations General Assembly [File: Evan Vucci/AP Photo]
The second article of impeachment charges Trump with obstructing the House’s effort to investigate the matter with an “unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House” in a manner “subversive” of the US Constitution.
It names nine officials who Trump directed not to comply with House subpoenas for testimony preventing investigators from obtaining a full picture of Trump’s actions.
“When the president violates the constitutional order, we have an obligation to deal with that,” Lofgren said.
Republicans disputed the Democrats arguments and said the impeachment drive was a partisan campaign to hurt Trump ahead of 2020.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and labelled the impeachment inquiry a “witch-hunt” and “sham”. This week, he called the impeachment articles “very weak” and then added the Democrats were “very weak”.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
