The U.S. House Intelligence Committee supported the earlier impeachment report of President Donald Trump. This means that the impeachment procedure is entering a new phase: now the report with the evidence base will be submitted to the jurisprudence committee.
Recall that the Democrats accuse Donald Trump of talking with the head of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, "allegedly abusing his official powers to obtain personal and political benefits to the detriment of national security." The abuse, according to Trump's opponents, was that the head of the White House asked Zelensky to facilitate an investigation into a possible opponent in the 2020 election, former US vice president Joe Biden.
The report claims that Trump allegedly froze the transfer of military assistance in the amount of $ 391 million to Ukraine, and also postponed Zelensky’s visit to the White House.
“The scheme followed by President Trump hit the US foreign policy towards Ukraine and undermined our national security for two politically motivated investigations that would help him in the fight for re-election,” the report said, the text of which was published on the committee’s website Congressional Intelligence.
Congressmen came to this conclusion on the basis of testimony from officials of the US State Department: former US charge d'affaires in Ukraine James Taylor, deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent, former adviser to the US president for relations with Russia Fiona Hill, former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, US ambassador to EU Gordon Sondland and former US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Walker.
The Biden Case
The report of the House’s intelligence committee said that during a telephone conversation with Vladimir Zelensky, the US president “forced the Ukrainian president to consult with his personal lawyer Rudi Giuliani,” who was actively lobbying for an investigation into the activities of Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.
- Joe Biden and Petro Poroshenko
- © Gleb Garanich / Reuters
In April 2019, the American political publication The Hill published an investigation according to which the son of former US vice president Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma, one of the largest private gas companies in Ukraine, in 2014.
According to The Hill, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine allegedly suspected Hunter Biden of receiving bribes from the leadership of Burism. Viktor Shokin, who was the head of the Ukrainian department at that time, planned to call Hunter Biden for interrogation on the fact of abuse in Burisma, but was dismissed by Petro Poroshenko in March 2016.
In January 2018, Biden himself confirmed his role in Shokin's resignation - speaking at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, he said that he delivered an ultimatum to President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, threatening them with the cancellation of credit guarantees for $ 1 billion if Attorney General Shokin does not removed from office. Biden explained this by saying that Shokin allegedly did not contribute to anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine.
Giuliani, being the closest ally of Donald Trump, has repeatedly stated on American television that Joe Biden used his political influence to enrich his family.
Party fight
According to Adam Schiff, chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee of the House of Representatives, the testimony gathered during a public hearing convincingly proves Trump's guilt of abuse of power.
- Vladimir Zelensky
- © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
“As part of the impeachment investigation, there has been compelling and conclusive evidence that President Trump has abused his authority to request foreign intervention in our elections for his personal, political gain,” Schiff wrote on Twitter, commenting on the publication of the report and the vote.
The impeachment inquiry uncovered overwhelming and uncontested evidence that President Trump abused the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference in our election for his own personal, political gain.
No one is above the law.
Read our report: https://t.co/6Hx0PZ48yw
It is worth noting that Schiff has long promoted the idea of impeachment of Donald Trump. While Mueller was investigating the president’s "ties" with Russia, Congressman Schiff regularly appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and CBS, claiming that Trump’s impeachment was imminent. After Mueller’s investigation was completed in the spring of 2019, and the final conclusion stated that there were no signs of “connections” between Trump’s headquarters and the Kremlin, Schiff actually refused to accept his findings.
In a White House statement regarding the publication of the report, the head of the congressional intelligence committee was compared to a “basement blogger,” and the evidence presented by the Democrats was called bankrupt.
“At the end of the one-sided and staging process, President Schiff and the Democrats did not provide any evidence of violations by President Trump. This report does not reflect anything but their dissatisfaction. The text of Chairman Schiff’s report is similar to the ravings of a basement blogger desperately trying to prove something with no evidence, ”said White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham.
The Republican Party, in turn, prepared its own report, which rejected the allegations of the Democrats.
“The evidence does not confirm any of the accusations made by the Democrats, and not one of their witnesses during the testimony stated that they have evidence of bribery, extortion, or other particularly serious crimes and misconduct,” the Republican Party report says. from which leads Fox News.
Donald Trump said on December 2 that there was no reason for his impeachment, as Vladimir Zelensky repeatedly denied any pressure from the 45th US president.
“Breaking news: the president of Ukraine has just announced that President Trump has done nothing wrong with Ukraine and our contacts or telephone conversations. If the radical left-wing democrats are in your mind - and they are not in your mind - then the matter would be closed! ”, Trump wrote on his Twitter.
Breaking News: The President of Ukraine has just again announced that President Trump has done nothing wrong with respect to Ukraine and our interactions or calls. If the Radical Left Democrats were sane, which they are not, it would be case over!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2019Impeachment procedure
After the adoption of the report by the intelligence committee, he will be sent to the jurisprudence committee. The next stage will be hearings with the participation of experts on constitutional law, which will determine the legal provisions necessary for impeachment, as well as study the report. Then the jurisprudence committee will decide on the preparation of the so-called impeachment articles and forward them to the Senate.
If the House of Representatives, on the basis of these articles, votes for impeachment, the US Senate will have to conduct a trial where two-thirds of the senators' votes are required to convict. Experts point out that, given the current balance of power in the upper house of Congress, at least 20 Republican senators will have to go into the “camp of the enemy” so Trump will be removed from power. Taking into account the almost unconditional support of the president from party members, such an option is unlikely, the director of the Fund named after Franklin Roosevelt on the study of the United States at Moscow State University Yuri Rogulev.
“If you carefully consider the accusations that the Democrats make against the president, then not one testifies to a serious or criminal offense requiring impeachment. American society is split, and a fairly large number of citizens do not believe that the president has committed a crime, ”the expert said in an interview with RT.
Yuri Rogulev noted that the articles of impeachment may be submitted for consideration by the Senate until December 25, however, the procedure itself is unlikely to begin before 2020.
“In the Senate, this process is much more complicated, since it requires two-thirds of the votes to be approved. I think that it is unlikely that this procedure will be possible through the Senate, because the Republicans who support Trump have the majority there, ”the expert noted.
The political scientist recalled that the US Democratic Party has been trying to get rid of Trump from the very first day of his reign.
“If they fail to overthrow him through impeachment, then their goal is to prevent him from being re-elected during the upcoming elections,” Yuri Rogulev explained.
As an expert of the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Blokhin noted in an interview with RT, this is already the fourth attempt of impeachment in the history of the United States - none of the previous ones was brought to an end due to the complex system of checks and balances in the US political life.
“The Democratic Party wants to drag out this process in order to maintain a negative informational background around Trump and, accordingly, lower its rating. The task in this case is to conduct a public relations campaign that will negatively affect not only Trump, but the entire US political system. This situation undermines the image and performance of American political institutions, ”the expert concluded.