Articles of impeachment which could see Donald Trump booted out of the White House are being formally delivered to the Senate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the two articles – akin to charges against the president – will be hand-delivered to the Senate on Wednesday after a majority of the House of Representatives voted to do so. The articles allege that Trump abused his office and obstructed Congress. A formal Senate impeachment trial is now set to begin as early as next week.
Trump is accused of abuse of his office by pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 presidential race. The president wanted Zelensky to probe rival Joe Biden’s son Hunter in return for a White House invite, as well as $400m in military aid.
The president charged with obstructing Congress by withholding documents that the House requested during the impeachment inquiry. He is also allegedly blocked administration officials and agencies from testifying during the impeachment inquiry.
Hours before articles were delivered, Pelosi named seven impeachment managers, who will act as prosecutors during the impeachment trial and argue the case for Trump’s removal. They are House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, as well as Representatives Val Demings, Hakeem Jeffries, Zoe Lofgren, Jason Crow, and Sylvia Garcia.
The delivery of the articles of impeachment came shortly after a House vote on a resolution to trigger the transmission of the charges to the Senate, which is led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell has repeatedly insisted the House’s case against Trump is flimsy. He has also hit out at Pelosi for holding onto the articles for weeks before delivering them to the Senate.
Over the weekend, Pelosi explained why the articles of impeachment were not sent right away after the House’s impeachment vote in December.
Pelosi said one reason for the delay was to allow the public time to see more ‘documentation which the president has prevented from coming to congress,’ meaning more evidence.
WATCH: "Time has been our friend in all of this, because it has yielded incriminating evidence, more truth into the public domain," Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, defending the delay in sending articles of impeachment to the Senate https://t.co/Tl1jFLcZ89 pic.twitter.com/Z0ji8YJE9j
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 15, 2020
On Tuesday evening, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff gave new evidence to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, which consisted of two flash drives. One, which is marked ‘sensitive’ contains call records with personal information. The other includes records recently produced by Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, ‘that are pertinent to the impeachment inquiry.’
Parnas’ texts indicate that former US Ambassador to Ukrain Marie Yovanovitch may have been under the surveillance of Giuliani’s associates.
The texts show congressional candidate Robert Hyde berating Yovanovitch as he suggests he was monitoring her while she was in Kiev and relaying her movements to Parnas.
Yovanovitch was briefly mentioned in the contentious phone call between Trump and Zelensky, during which Trump called Yovanovitch ‘bad news,’ before she was fired by the president in May. She later became a key witness in the House impeachment probe.
Pelosi also reportedly delayed the delivery of the articles to dictate the terms of the trial and pressure Senate Republicans to accept Democrat’s requests to call witnesses to testify.
In an interview with This Week’s George Stephanopoulus on ABC on Sunday, Pelosi said: ‘We wanted the public to see the need for witnesses, witnesses with firsthand knowledge of what happened.’
McConnell reportedly opposed calling witnesses in the trial. He allegedly spoke in private about the need to have a trial without witnesses, but has since changed his position slightly.
Republican senators now say the trial should mirror the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999, which means that the issue of witnesses can be decided after opening statements.
During Clinton’s impeachment trial, the House impeachment managers initially wanted up to 18 witnesses, but the Senate only approved three for closed-door depositions. None testified on the Senate floor.
Democrats have expressed their desire to call four witnesses to testify: acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Mulvaney’s senior adviser Robert Blair, and Associate Director for National Security at the Office of Management and Budget Michael Duffey.
All four were called to testify during the House inquiry, but they failed to show up.
Bolton has since indicated that he will testify if issued a subpoena (legal demand), amid claims he has notes made during Trump’s dealings with Zelensky which now form the basis of his impeachment.
When asked if she regretted delaying the articles, Pelosi responded: ‘No, no no, we feel that it has produced a very positive result.’
Trump and his supporters claim Pelosi held onto the articles because she knows the case against him is weak.
The president has dismissed the allegations against him as a ‘witch hunt.’
Opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial are expected to begin as early as next week.
The Republican-majority Senate is expected to acquit Trump, whose removal would require a two-thirds majority in the 100-member chamber.
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