Impeachment Report Archives - Iran News Daily

Two impeachment charges against Trump unveiled

reporter 1222 — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 06:02:57 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Democrats unveiled two impeachment charges Tuesday against US President Donald Trump after weeks of arguing there is overwhelming evidence that the US leader abused his office and deserves to be removed.

If the two impeachment charges – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress – are approved by the full House of Representatives in a vote expected next week, it would put Trump in the historic position of being the third US leader ever impeached and placed on trial in the Senate, AFP reported.

“Our president holds the ultimate public trust,” said House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler.

“When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country, he endangers the constitution, he endangers our democracy and he endangers our national security.”

Nadler, in a solemn and deeply serious moment for the nation, was joined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the US Capitol to lay out the charges facing Trump.

The president is alleged to have wielded the power of the presidency for personal and political gain by pressuring Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 US election.

His accusers say he conditioned vital military aid and a much-sought White House meeting on Kyiv announcing it would investigate Democratic former vice president Joe Biden, who is the frontrunner to challenge Trump in the 2020 election.

He also pressed his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to probe a debunked Kremlin conspiracy theory that it was Kyiv and not Moscow, that interfered in the 2016 US election.

The charges also focus on Trump’s efforts to block Congress from fully investigating his actions – which Democrats see as a violation of its constitutional right to conduct oversight of the executive branch.

“The evidence of the president’s misconduct is overwhelming and uncontested,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who oversaw weeks of public hearings in which witnesses including Trump administration officials and US diplomats testified about the pressure on Ukraine.

“To do nothing would make ourselves complicit in the president’s abuse of his high office,” Schiff said, adding that Trump’s “misconduct goes to the heart of whether we can conduct a free and fair election in 2020.”

Trump, who has long assailed the Democrats for pursuing impeachment, maintained his fighting posture early Tuesday, tweeting that the effort to oust him as “sheer Political Madness!”

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Trump impeachment act against corruption

reporter 1222 — Sat, 07 Dec 2019 07:32:39 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – US House Democrats moved aggressively to draw up formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Thursday, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying he “leaves us no choice” but to act swiftly as he is likely to corrupt the system again unless removed before next year election.

A strictly partisan effort at this point derided immediately by Trump and other leading Republicans as a sham and a hoax, it is a politically risky undertaking. Democrats say it is their duty, in the aftermath of the Ukraine probe to pursue Trump impeachment, while Republicans say this act will drive Pelosi’s majority from office, AP reported.

Congress must act, Pelosi said. “Democracy is what is at stake.”

“The president’s actions have seriously violated the Constitution,” she said in a somber address at the Capitol. “He is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit. The president has engaged in abuse of power, undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections.”

Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong. He tweeted that the Democrats “have gone crazy.”

At the core of the impeachment, the probe is a July phone call with the president of Ukraine, in which Trump pressed the leader to investigate Democrats, including political rival Joe Biden. At the same time, the White House was withholding military aid from Ukraine, an ally bordering Russia.

Drafting articles of impeachment is a milestone moment, only the fourth time in US history, Congress has tried to remove a president, and it intensifies the rigid and polarizing partisanship of the Trump era that is consuming Washington and dividing the nation.

The speaker delivered her historic announcement in solemn tones at the Capitol, drawing on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers in forcefully claiming Congress’ oversight of the president in the nation’s system of checks and balances. Democrats are already beginning to prepare the formal charges, pushing toward House votes, possibly before Christmas.

“Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment,” Pelosi said.

Seemingly eager to fight, Trump tweeted that if Democrats “are going to impeach me, do it now, fast.” Though he has fought the House investigation, trying to bar current and former officials from testifying, he said he now wants to move on to a “fair trial” in the Senate.

Approval of articles of impeachment is considered likely in the Democratic-majority House. Conviction in a following trial in the Republican-dominated Senate seems very unlikely.

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Impeachment Inquiry: Trump calls the hearing ‘unfair’

reporter 1222 — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 09:21:23 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – US President Donald Trump and his lawyers will not participate in a congressional impeachment hearing this week, the White House has said, citing a lack of “fundamental fairness” in impeachemnt inquiry.

Trump’s aides responded defiantly on Sunday to the first of two crucial deadlines he faces in Congress this week as Democrats prepare to shift the focus of their impeachment inquiry from fact-finding to the consideration of possible charges of misconduct over his dealings with Ukraine.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives judiciary committee, tasked with considering charges known as articles of impeachment, had given Trump until 6 pm on Sunday to say whether he would send a lawyer to take part in the judiciary panel’s proceedings on Wednesday.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote to committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, according to a copy of a letter seen by Reuters: “We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the judiciary committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings.”

Cipollone cited a “complete lack of due process and fundamental fairness afforded the president” in the impeachment process but did not rule out participation in further proceedings. But he signaled that Democrats would first have to make major procedural concessions.

Nadler has given the White House a Friday deadline to say whether Trump would mount a defense in broader impeachment proceedings.

The judiciary committee’s Democratic staff did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the White House’s refusal to participate in the hearing, which would have been the first direct involvement by the Trump camp in a process he has condemned as a partisan “witch hunt”.

Democratic US Representative Don Beyer said on Twitter in response to the White House letter: “Not one process complaint made by the president and his Republican allies in Congress so far has turned out to be genuine.”

Congressional investigators have been looking into whether Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to launch investigations into former Democratic vice president Joe Biden, who is running to unseat him in the 2020 presidential election, and a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

The first in a series of expected judiciary proceedings will hear testimony on the impeachment process established under the US constitution from a panel of legal experts that has yet to be named.

Hearings before the committee, which has responsibility for crafting any formal charges against Trump, are a major step toward possible charges. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will make the final decision, has not yet said whether Trump should be impeached. But in a letter to supporters last week, she called for him to be held accountable for his actions.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the impeachment inquiry a sham.

Nadler also set a second deadline of 5 pm on Friday for Trump to say whether he or his legal counsel would participate in further proceedings expected next week to examine the evidence against him.

“We may consider participating in future judiciary committee proceedings if you afford the administration the ability to do so meaningfully,” Cipollone wrote, laying out a list of demands, including allowing Trump’s Republicans to call additional witnesses.

Cipollone also complained that Democrats had scheduled Wednesday’s hearing – “no doubt purposely” – to overlap with Trump’s absence from the US to attend a NATO summit in London.

Three investigating panels, led by the House Intelligence Committee, are due to release a formal report this week when lawmakers return on Tuesday from a Thanksgiving recess. The report will outline evidence gathered by the intelligence, foreign affairs, and oversight committees.

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Impeachment Report Voted Soon

reporter 1222 — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 13:29:50 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The US House Intelligence Committee will vote Tuesday on Chairman Adam Schiff’s impeachment report, which will make a case for the congressional removal of President Donald Trump.

The vote, likely to break along party lines, is a formality allowing the Democrat-controlled body to pass the impeachment inquiry report on to the Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to begin its proceedings Wednesday.

The impeachment inquiry is focused on Trump’s request last summer that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy launch investigations into debunked claims the nation interfered in the 2016 US election and that former Vice President Joe Biden, a Trump political rival, shut down an investigation into a Ukrainian energy firm where his son worked.

Intelligence Committee members will be able to view a draft of Schiff’s report beginning late Monday, according to NBC News.

The vote is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday after Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break. If Intelligence Committee members vote to adopt the report by Schiff, D-California, it will be forwarded to the Judiciary Committee.

Trump has claimed Democrats are conducting the inquiry without due process, but earlier this week Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, invited Trump and his legal representatives to participate in the next wave of hearings.

Nadler said in a letter that Trump “has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process”, Euronews reported.

Trump criticized the proceedings in a Saturday night tweet and noted he would be in London on Wednesday.

“I will be representing our Country in London at NATO, while the Democrats are holding the most ridiculous Impeachment hearings in history,” he tweeted. “Read the Transcripts, NOTHING was done or said wrong! The Radical Left is undercutting our Country. Hearings scheduled on the same dates as NATO!”

In a subsequent letter to Trump, asking if his lawyers would attend proceedings, Nadler quoted a draft of Schiff’s report as describing “a months-long effort in which President Trump again sought foreign interference in our elections for his personal and political benefit at the expense of our national interest.”

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