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Democrats Charge Trump with Two Articles of Impeachment

HeadlineDec 11, 2019

House lawmakers have unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump, bringing a sitting president to the brink of impeachment for only the fourth time in U.S. history. This is chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler, announcing the first article of impeachment.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler: “The first article is for abuse of power. It is an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit, while ignoring or injuring the national interest.”

The impeachment inquiry centers on how President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Democratic lawmakers say Trump then tried to cover up his actions, leading to the second article of impeachment: obstruction of Congress. This is Nadler.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler: “These actions, moreover, are consistent with President Trump’s previous invitations of foreign interference in our 2016 presidential election. And when he was caught, when the House investigated and opened an impeachment inquiry, President Trump engaged in unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry. This gives rise to the second article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress.”

The unveiling of the articles of impeachment against President Trump comes as FBI Director Christopher Wray accepted the key finding of the Justice Department inspector general’s report, that the FBI’s probe into Trump’s 2016 campaign officials was not politically motivated. In response, President Trump slammed Wray during a speech in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump: “You have great people in the FBI, but not in leadership. You have not good people in leadership you haven’t had.”

During Trump’s speech in Hershey, Pennsylvania, he also encouraged security to rough up a female protester who disrupted his event.

President Donald Trump: “Yeah, get her out! You see that? I’ll tell you, law enforcement is so great. That particular guy wanted to be so politically correct. Oooh! Ooh! We don’t want to be politically correct.”

That was President Trump, flailing his hands, reminiscent of the time he disparagingly mocked a disabled New York Times reporter while on the campaign trail.

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