Judiciary panel looks into report

WASHINGTON－The Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee is moving swiftly to weigh findings by fellow lawmakers that US President Donald Trump misused the power of his office for personal political gain and then obstructed Congress' investigation, thus creating grounds for impeachment.

The Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for drafting articles of impeachment, on Wednesday morning prepared for its first hearing since the release on Tuesday of a 300-page report by the House Intelligence Committee. The report found "serious misconduct" by the president.

The product of a rapid investigation sparked by a whistleblower's complaint in August, the report summarizes a monthslong scheme by Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and senior diplomats to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Joe Biden is Trump's feared rival as he is the favorite to win the Democratic 2020 White House nomination.

The report did not render a judgment on whether Trump's actions stemming from a July 25 phone call with Zelensky rose to the constitutional level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" warranting impeachment. That is for the full House of Representatives to decide. But its findings involving Trump's efforts to seek foreign intervention in the election process provide the basis for a House vote on impeachment. If the House votes to impeach, a Senate trial will follow. A guilty verdict would remove Trump from office.

In releasing the report, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said at a news conference on Tuesday: "The evidence that we have found is really quite overwhelming that the president used the power of his office to secure political favors and abuse the trust American people put in him and jeopardize our security."

"It was a difficult decision to go down this road, because it's so consequential for the country," the California Democrat said. But "the president was the author of his own impeachment inquiry by repeatedly seeking foreign help in his election campaigns".

Frustrations

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the report reflected nothing more than "frustrations" of Democrats.

"At the end of a one-sided sham process, Chairman Schiff and the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump," Grisham said in a statement on Tuesday. "Chairman Schiff's report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing."

Trump, who is attending a NATO meeting in London, called the impeachment effort by Democrats "unpatriotic" and said he wouldn't be watching Wednesday's hearing.

Delivery of the report to the House judiciary panel kicked off a busy year-end in the lower chamber, with Democrats on track to potentially vote on impeaching Trump by Christmas.

The president will be impeached if the House, by a simple majority vote, approves any of the articles of impeachment the House Judiciary Committee recommends.

But conviction can only happen in the Senate and requires at least two-thirds of its members, or 67 senators, to vote in favor. Currently, the Senate has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday that he will first meet with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for a deal to establish rules for an impeachment trial if the House impeaches Trump. But if that doesn't work out, the Republican has a potential backup plan.

"The first thing Senator Schumer and I will do is see if there's a possibility of agreement on a procedure," McConnell said. "That failing, I would probably come back to my own members and say: 'OK, can 51 of us agree how we're going to handle this?'"

Schumer also tried to strike a bipartisan tone.

"The best way to do something that's important and almost as hallowed a procedure as this, is in a bipartisan way, so I hope that Leader McConnell will make every effort to come up with a bipartisan solution working with me. I'm certainly willing to work with him," the Democrat said.