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Democrats release Trump impeachment report
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(66)5 key developments today in the Trump impeachment inquiry
A lot happened today on Capitol Hill as lawmakers move forward with their impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
In case you missed it, here’s what you need to know about today:
- The House Intelligence Committee released its report on Ukraine: House Democrats said the evidence of Trump’s misconduct and obstruction of Congress is “overwhelming.” The report will form the backbone of the impeachment proceedings against the President and charges that Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine compromised national security.
- The report was approved: The intelligence committee voted tonight along party lines to approve the report. The Democratic report now goes to the House Judiciary Committee, which will use it as a guide to consider articles of impeachment. The judiciary committee will hear testimony from four constitutional law experts at its first impeachment inquiry hearing tomorrow.
- What phone records show: Armed with never-before-seen phone records, Democrats accused Trump’s allies of coordinating with conservative journalist John Solomon to peddle “false narratives” about Trump’s opponents as part of his multi-pronged pressure campaign. The report said Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, was linked to the effort.
- No decision on impeachment: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN she has not made a decision yet on impeachment, saying she’s waiting to see the hearings in the House Judiciary Committee.
- Republicans criticized the report: Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, speaking at a news conference today, blasted the report and said Democrats “fundamentally failed to prove their case.” Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee also sent a letter to Chair Jerry Nadler ahead of tomorrow’s hearing, criticizing the Democrats’ “obsession with impeaching the President and undoing the 2016 election.”
People close to Trump think Giuliani has become a "liability" for the President, sources say
Two Trump campaign sources said people close to President Trump and on his campaign believe Rudy Giuliani has become a “liability” for the President.
A Trump campaign source reacted to the findings from House Intelligence Committee with a finger pointed squarely at Giuliani, who is mentioned repeatedly in the report as having had phone calls with officials at the White House and Office of Management and Budget.
A separate Trump campaign adviser described Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, as a growing concern for the President.
“Rudy has become a liability,” the adviser said.
However, Trump has not publicly wavered in his support for Giuliani, and despite the lingering questions, he is still part of the President’s legal team.
Pelosi says she has not made a decision on impeachment
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN she has not made a decision yet on impeachment, saying she’s waiting to see the hearings in the House Judiciary Committee starting tomorrow.
The California Democrat also said she would look at the House Intelligence Committee’s report more closely since she just arrived back in the US after a congressional delegation.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, walking into Pelosi’s office, declined to comment on if he wants any possible articles of impeachment to include special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings.
“I can’t get into that now,” Nadler said.
Top House Republican on Nunes phone records: "I have no concerns"
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said he had “no concerns” about the emergence of call records in the House Democratic impeachment report between Rep. Devin Nunes and several key players in the impeachment investigation.
Asked again if Nunes, a Republican from California, needed to explain why he was holding those phone calls, McCarthy said it’s “a question for Devin, but Devin has the right to talk to people. There’s nothing wrong that Devin has done.”
Pelosi stays silent on impeachment plans
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not say in private if she backs impeaching President Trump, telling her colleagues that a decision hasn’t been made and she’s not committing to a timeline for impeachment, according to multiple sources familiar with her comments.
Pelosi told Democrats tonight that she would confer with the chairs of her relevant committees before next steps are decided.
She would not commit to any timeline even as Democrats expect the President to be impeached by Christmas.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer also made a similar comment, saying the decision hasn’t been made.
Asked if he supports impeachment, Hoyer said: “Not at this point. I want to hear what the judiciary committee has to say”
He added he wants to keep an open mind and would let the committees decide.
House Intelligence Committee votes to approve the impeachment report
The House Intelligence Committee has voted to approve the Democratic impeachment report on President Trump and Ukraine, according to Rep. Mike Quigley.
It was a party line vote.
Lawmakers say all of the Republican amendments were defeated on party line votes, too.
What happens next: The report will now be sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which is starting its impeachment hearings tomorrow and will use the report as a guide to consider articles of impeachment.
In the report, which was released earlier today, Democrats alleged that Trump abused his office and comprised national security for his personal political gain by pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals and withholding US security aid.
Giuliani's phone conversations with the White House are "privileged," his assistant says
Christianné Allen, Rudy Giuliani’s assistant, issued a statement today regarding a series of phone records detailed in the House Intelligence Committee’s report on the impeachment inquiry.
More on this: The phone records, which are labeled in the report’s endnotes as coming from AT&T, show a web of communications between conservative journalist John Solomon, Giuliani, Ukrainian American businessman Lev Parnas, Rep. Devin Nunes of California and the White House’s budget office. CNN is owned by AT&T.
Many of these calls occurred in April, according to the Democratic report, the same time Solomon pumped out columns in The Hill. The stories were filled with discredited conspiracy theories about then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son was on the board of a prominent Ukrainian energy company.
The Democratic report identifies at least four phone calls or attempted calls between Parnas and Nunes, including one call on April 12 that lasted longer than eight minutes. Within an hour of that call, Parnas also spoke with Giuliani, who later connected with Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow and a “White House phone number,” according to the phone records.
The call logs show the extent the Democratic investigators went to get hands on any evidence it could get, even as the administration blocked access to records. The records were not discussed publicly before the release of the report.
GOP congresswoman says Democrats "fundamentally failed to prove their case"
House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, speaking at a news conference today, said Democrats “fundamentally failed to prove their case.”
Cheney called the impeachment inquiry “fundamentally unfair” and said the Democrats have tilted the process in their direction from the start of the inquiry.
Cheney continued: “They still have not released the transcript of the IC inspector general. The Democrats stack staged the deck in their favor and despite the fact they did this and even with every unfair advantage and unprecedented advantage they gave themselves, including preventing the President from having any access to the proceedings, preventing his counsel from having any participation in the proceedings, they have now come out this and fundamentally failed to prove their case.”
Podcast: The impeachment report is out. Here's what we know
There’s “overwhelming” evidence of President Trump’s misconduct, according to the impeachment report released today by the House Intelligence Committee.
While the report paints a damning portrait of the President, none of the facts are new.
Are Democrats making a mistake by failing to force testimony from additional witnesses like John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney? Plus, are Democrats pursuing a moral victory at the expense of their political fortunes?
In today’s episode of “The Daily DC: Impeachment Watch” podcast, CNN political director David Chalian dives into the impeachment news of the day with CNN national security analyst Sam Vinograd and the host of ‘SE Cupp Unfiltered,’ S.E. Cupp.
3 key takeaways (so far) from the impeachment report
The House Intelligence Committee just released its impeachment inquiry report.
It’s a roughly 300-page report, and we’re still going through it, but here are some of the key takeaways so far:
- This report is the articles of impeachment roadmap. While committee chair Adam Schiff is publicly reserving judgment on impeachment, a simple look at the table of contents makes clear that this product was intended to serve as the backbone of articles of impeachment. Section One lays out, in extensive detail, abuse of power. Section two lays out, in extensive detail, efforts to obstruct the inquiry. The 19 “Key Findings of Fact” that follow track along these lines as well, and would conceivably fold quite well, verbatim, into draft articles.
- There is new — and significant — information. The report is largely a detailed, narrative based product designed to lay out in a single place what the committee learned in closed-door depositions and public hearings over the course of two months. The depositions are now available to the public, as are the transcripts of the hearings, so much of the narrative was well known. What wasn’t: that the committee had subpoenaed call records, dozens of them, to lay out timelines of contacts between key players including Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Devin Nunes, Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas, conservative journalist John Solomon and various White House contacts (including a call from Giuliani to the Situation Room.) It’s also clear the committee obtained call records tied to US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, laying out his calls to the White House. While many of these contacts were alluded to, or assumed, based on the testimony of witnesses, the explicit records showing the number of calls — and who all was talking — adds heft to Democratic allegations.
- Rep. Devin Nunes has emerged in the investigation. Nunes, the top Republican on the panel, has always been a central player in the impeachment inquiry due to his role on the committee. Now he’s a star player due to his contacts, and alleged knowledge, of what the committee was investigating from the very start. Through the call records it is abundantly clear that Nunes — along with two of his top aides — were in repeated contact with the very players at the heart of the investigation, including Parnas and Giuliani. Schiff declined to say if he discussed these contacts with Nunes in advance, only saying: “It is deeply concerning that at a time when the president of the United States was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival, that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity.”
Here's how tomorrow's House Judiciary impeachment hearing will work
The House Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing tomorrow. The expected witnesses are four constitutional law experts.
Here’s the schedule for the hearing, which starts at 10 a.m. ET:
- Chair Jerry Nadler and Ranking Member Doug Collins will give opening statements, before the witnesses are sworn in and give their own opening statements.
- There will be 45 minutes for Democratic counsel questions.
- Then there will be 45 minutes for Republican counsel questions.
- After that, each member will get 5 minutes to ask questions.
- The hearing will end with closing statements.
Trump campaign has dug up information on tomorrow's witnesses to discredit them
The Trump campaign has dug up research on the academic witnesses testifying tomorrow before the House Judiciary Committee – including some of their past statements and past political contributions.
The campaign plans to blast some of this out later today, and will also have past statements, tweets and other information about the witnesses ready to weaponize during the hearing tomorrow, per two campaign aides.
It’s part of what will be an effort from Trump allies to discredit the professors testifying tomorrow.
Here’s a taste of what the campaign will be sending out soon:
- Pamela Karlan is a registered Democrat since1998, served in the Obama administration and has been described as a “politically liberal law professor,” and an “unapologetic liberal.” She has donated $1,000 to Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign this year and donated $2,000 to Hillary Clinton.
- Noah Feldman, in 2017, wrote that a tweet from President Trump may have been an impeachable offense. The same year, he wrote that President Trump’s criticism of the media is grounds for impeachment. In January 2018, Feldman wrote that President Trump should be impeached for declaring a crisis at the southern border.
- Michael Gerhardt argued earlier this year that Trump should be impeached. He donated $1,245 to Barack Obama and has donated to other Democrat candidates.
Nunes ignores questions about being named in report
CNN tried to ask Rep. Devin Nunes about being named in the report.
He declined to comment.
More context: Call logs in the just-released report link Nunes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, to an effort of coordinating with a conservative journalist to peddle “false narratives” about President Trump’s opponents.
The report shows Nunes exchanged multiple calls with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s associate, Lev Parnas, who is currently facing federal charges of campaign finance violations.
Trump was briefed before the report's release
President Trump was briefed before the release of the Democratic House Intelligence Committee’s report on what was expected, but the President has not yet received a detailed readout of the document now that it has been released, a senior administration official said.
White House aides in Washington are combing through the 300-page report and will provide feedback to the President at some point, the official said. The source added that the President’s team in Washington — which includes the counsel’s office, the chief of staff’s office and the President’s allies — are very engaged with developments the impeachment process this week and will continue to brief Trump while he’s traveling in London this week for the NATO summit.
The official reiterated that it is doubtful Trump will watch the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing tomorrow because it will conflict with the President’s schedule.
The official also denied there are any renewed concerns about acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in light of the Democratic report, which made reference to his quid pro quo comments at the White House podium.
Democrats use Giuliani's own words to hammer him for Ukraine pressure campaign
The Democratic report cites a series of public comments from Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, including television interviews, comments to reporters and Twitter posts.
Democrats used all of these comments to hammer Giuliani for “putting pressure on Ukraine to open investigations that would benefit his 2020 reelection campaign.”
They also used the comments to accuse Giuliani of working for President Trump’s personal interests, not in the interests of the United States. Over the past few months, as the investigation has intensified, Giuliani has maintained that he did everything solely for the benefit of his client, Trump.
Here are some of the Giuliani quotes that appear in the report:
- “We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.”
- “Everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges.”
- “This isn’t foreign policy — I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already, and that other people are telling them to stop.”
What the report says about Pompeo and his role in the impeachment inquiry
The House Intelligence Committee report explicitly states that President Trump’s “scheme” was carried out “with the knowledge and approval” of several top administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
This directly implicates the top US diplomat in efforts that “subverted US foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security.”
The report notes that Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified Pompeo was among those top officials who were “in the loop” regarding efforts to leverage a White House meeting and military aid to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce two political investigations: One into the Bidens, Burisma and another into the debunked conspiracy that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
Specifically, the report notes that Pompeo was fully aware of Sondland’s efforts to “break the logjam” regarding military aid to Ukraine, indicating he was fully aware that the money was conditioned on Zelensky announcing his intent to move forward with these investigations.
The report states that Pompeo not only refused to issue a public statement of support for former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch amid a smear campaign against her, but was also in contact with President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani at that time.
The report also highlights the fact that Pompeo refused to turn over any State Department documents related to Trump and Giuliani’s dealings with Ukraine. Those documents include a March 27 email, obtained via FOIA lawsuit, indicating Trump’s personal secretary facilitated a phone call between Pompeo and Giuliani.
The report also highlights Pompeo’s efforts to discourage State Department officials from testifying in the impeachment inquiry.
Schumer: Possible Senate impeachment trial must be bipartisan
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he has not yet had discussions with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about a possible Senate impeachment trial.
Schumer also said he hopes the Senate procedure will be a “full” and “open procedure,” not something “that’s unduly truncated.”
House Democrats have aimed to hold a vote to impeach President Trump by Christmas. If the House votes to impeach the President, the case then moves to the Senate, which will hold a trial, after which senators would vote on removing Trump from office.
Democrats invoke FBI director to criticize Giuliani
House Democrats invoked FBI Director Christopher Wray to criticize Rudy Giuliani’s actions with Ukraine. They pointed out how Wray said the FBI was concerned about Americans contacting foreign actors who were trying to influence US politics.
Regardless of Wray’s public warning, Giuliani pushed ahead with his off-the-books effort to get Ukraine to announce investigations into Trump’s political rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden. The result of these announcements would have given Trump’s campaign a boost, and would have helped Trump undercut the findings of the Mueller probe.
Pence's chief of staff blasts Schiff following report's release
The Vice President’s chief of staff, Marc Short, blasted House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff after the release of Democrats’ report.
“Adam Schiff is a proven liar and this allegation further solidifies that well-earned reputation,” Short said.
The report highlights Vice President Mike Pence’s role in the Ukraine pressure campaign and his careful statement about the investigations.
Democrats accuse Pence’s office of crafting a “carefully worded statement” responding to US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s testimony, arguing that the statement did not address the actual claims in the testimony. Sondland testified that he told Pence, during a trip to Warsaw in early September, that the withholding of military aid had “become tied to the issue of investigations.”
The report accuses Pence, along with senior members of the administration, of being “either knowledgeable of or active participants in an effort to extract from a foreign nation the personal political benefits sought by the President,” and heavily relies on what Sondland testifies he told the vice president in Warsaw.
Schiff: There’s a "grave risk" in waiting for more evidence when we already have enough
House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff said there is “grave risk to the country” in waiting for more evidence in the impeachment case when Congress knows “enough about the President’s misconduct to make a responsible judgement.”
Schiff said the Democrats will continue to investigate and his committee could send additional information to the Judiciary Committee in the future.
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