Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly announced that the House would be pursuing formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Now, this weekend, as Trump continues to spend a whole bunch of his free time raging about the process, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has issued a stern defense of the process, which he says may include bringing articles of impeachment before the full Judiciary panel sometime this week, which would be the final step before a full House vote. If Trump was watching, he’s likely to flip — we all know how much he prioritizes his ego and public image.
Nadler insisted:
‘This is a matter of urgency to deal with because we have to make sure the next election is conducted with integrity and without foreign interference… [President Trump] poses a threat to the integrity of the next election if he’s allowed to continue to do what he’s doing.’
It’s true — the scheme driving the impeachment process centers on the president seeking to exchange dirt on the Bidens from Ukraine for military aid and a summit in D.C. Trump also wanted Ukraine to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory that interests in their own country perpetuated major 2016 election meddling.
In the wake of these issues, Nadler explained:
‘We’ll bring articles of impeachment presumably before the committee at some point later in the week.. The decisions have to be made based on everything we have learned until now and everything that we will hear tomorrow. Remember — some of these things are very clear at this point. There is overwhelming evidence, uncontested by the Republicans, that the president put himself above the country, that the president sought foreign assistance in elections, sought to cover it up, and completely defied participation in the Congressional investigation in order to hide his role.’
Watch:
WATCH: @RepJerryNadler: “We’ll bring articles of impeachment presumably before the committee at some point later in the week.” #MTP #IfItsSunday pic.twitter.com/9xlOErN6nY
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 8, 2019
Despite Republican claims, the impeachment process is not proceeding based just on some kind of animosity towards the president. It’s proceeding on the basis of ample evidence condemning the president and many of his closest allies as participants in a scheme to yet again enact foreign interference in U.S. elections.
Nadler’s committee is leading the impeachment process at present, following a series of public fact-finding hearings led by the House Intelligence Committee. The first public Judiciary impeachment hearing featured four legal scholars discussing the Constitutional basis for impeaching Donald Trump, and Nadler’s committee has another public hearing planned for Monday, at which time there will apparently be a public walk through of evidence against the president that investigators have accumulated. Legal counsel for the intel panel will be present.
Trump, as Nadler indicated, has consistently and repeatedly declined to participate in the process, although he’s still complaining about it anyway!
Just the other day, Trump angrily tweeted:
‘Nadler hasn’t had a single fact witness testify! Zero substance—Country wants #USMCA and Growth, not Impeachment. Polls have tanked on the Do Nothing Democrats!’
Actually, an average of one in two Americans support the impeachment process. Trump would likely find some reason to complain in literally every possible scenario for the rest of the impeachment process.
