Trump abused his powers to boost election hopes – impeachment report
Donald Trump used his position to solicit foreign interference to boost his chances of re-election next year, Democrats have claimed.
In the party’s impeachment report, released on Tuesday evening, representatives say that not only did the US president seek overseas help for his re-election campaign, but that he undermined national security in doing so.
The report said there was evidence that Mr Trump had conducted a “month’s long effort” to “use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election”.
During Congress impeachment hearings, Mr Trump was accused of trying to put political pressure on Ukraine to dig up dirt on the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Democrats say that Trump used the offer of military aid and the prospect of a visit to the White House to encourage the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to find information that would politically benefit his election campaign next year.
Laying out their impeachment case against the president, Democrats say he “placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States”.
They add that Mr Trump has made an “unprecedented” effort to obstruct the investigation after he refused to provide testimony from himself, or his advisers.
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The president, who is currently at a NATO summit in London, has denied any wrongdoing.
Congressman Adam Schiff, who is leading the proceedings for the Democrats, said in a news conference that Mr Trump believes “he is beyond indictment, beyond impeachment, beyond any form of accountability and indeed above the law.”
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He added: “If we don’t care about this, we can darn well be sure the president will be back at it doing this all over again.”
Mr Schiff had previously tweeted that the evidence against Mr Trump is “overwhelming and uncontested”, adding: “No one is above the law.”
The House Intelligence Committee is expected to vote for the report along party lines, before it goes to the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
However, eventually a two-thirds majority in the Republican-controlled Senate would be needed to approve Mr Trump’s impeachment – something which is unlikely to happen.
White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham called the report a “sham” that had not produced any evidence of wrongdoing by Mr Trump.
She said: “This report reflects nothing more than their frustrations. chairman Schiff’s report reads like the ramblings of a basemen blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing.”
