Impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump
The inquiry process which preceded the first impeachment of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States, was initiated by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on September 24, 2019, after a whistleblower alleged that Donald Trump may have abused the power of the presidency. Trump was accused of withholding military aid as a means of pressuring newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy to pursue investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter and to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. More than a week after Trump had put a hold on the previously approved aid, he made these requests in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president, which the whistleblower said was intended to help Trump's reelection bid.
Believing critical military aid would be revoked, Zelenskyy made plans to announce investigations into the Bidens on the September 13 episode of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. After Trump was told of the whistleblower complaint in late August and elements of the events had begun to leak, the aid was released on September 11 and the planned interview was cancelled. Trump declassified a non-verbatim summary of the call on September 24, the day the impeachment inquiry began. The whistleblower's complaint was given to Congress the following day and subsequently released to the public. The White House corroborated several of the allegations, including that a record of the call between Trump and Zelenskyy had been stored in a highly restricted system in the White House normally reserved for classified information.
In October, three congressional committees deposed witnesses including Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor, Laura Cooper, and former White House official Fiona Hill. Witnesses testified that they believed Trump wanted Zelenskyy to publicly announce investigations into the Bidens and Burisma and 2016 election interference. On October 8, in a letter from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to House Speaker Pelosi, the White House officially responded that it would not cooperate with the investigation due to concerns including that there had not yet been a vote of the full House of Representatives and that interviews of witnesses were being conducted privately. On October 17, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney responded to a reporter's allegation of quid pro quo saying: "We do that all the time with foreign policy. Get over it." He walked back his comments later, asserting that there had been "absolutely no quid pro quo" and that Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine over concerns of the country's corruption.
On October 31, the House of Representatives voted 232–196 to establish procedures for public hearings, which started on November 13. As hearings began, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Trump may have committed bribery, which is listed in Article Two as an impeachable offense. Private and public congressional testimony by twelve government witnesses in November 2019 presented evidence that Trump demanded political favors in exchange for official action. On December 10, the House Judiciary Committee unveiled their articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress. Three days later, the Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to approve both articles. On December 16, the House Judiciary Committee released a report specifying criminal bribery and wire fraud charges as part of the abuse of power charge. On December 18, the House voted mostly along party lines to impeach the president on both charges. The vote on Article One, abuse of power, was 230–197, with one vote of present. All Republicans voted against the article, joined by two Democrats. The vote on Article Two, obstruction of Congress, was 229–198, with one vote of present. All Republicans voted against the article, joined by three Democrats. Recent Republican, five-term Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan, also voted for impeachment; the frequent Trump critic had declared himself an Independent in July.
Background
Previous calls for impeachment
Efforts to impeach President Trump had been made by a variety of people and groups.Early efforts
The first efforts in the Republican-controlled Congress were initiated in 2017 by Representatives Al Green and Brad Sherman, both Democrats, in response to Trump's obstructions of justice in the Russian influence investigations begun during the first year of Trump's presidency. A December 2017 resolution of impeachment failed in the House by a 58–364 vote margin.Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives following the 2018 elections and made Nancy Pelosi the new Speaker. While she opposed any move toward impeachment, she supported multiple committees' respective investigations into Trump's actions and finances. On January 17, 2019, new allegations involving Trump surfaced, claiming he instructed his long-time lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie under oath about Trump's conflict-of-interest involvement with the Russian government to erect a Trump Tower in Moscow. This also sparked requests for an investigation and for the president to "resign or be impeached" should such claims be substantiated.
Special Counsel Mueller's Report
The report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, released on April 18, 2019, found that soon after the firing of James Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, Trump "engaged in conduct... involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public acts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation." The Mueller Report found "multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigation." For example, the Mueller Report found "substantial evidence" or "evidence" that:- "The President's attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel's oversight of investigations that involved the President's conduct";
- "The President's effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel's investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President's and his campaign's conduct";
- "In repeatedly urging McGahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn's account in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny of the President's conduct towards the investigation."
- "... at least one purpose of the President's conduct towards Jeff Sessions was to have Sessions assume control over the Russia investigation and supervise it in a way that would restrict its scope... A reasonable inference... is that the President believed that an unrecused Attorney General would play a protective role and could shield the President from the ongoing Russia investigation."
- "... could support the inference that the President intended to discourage Cohen from cooperating with the government because Cohen's information would shed adverse light on the President's campaign-period conduct and statements."
- "... the President's actions had the potential to influence Manafort's decision on whether to cooperate with the government... The President's public statements during the Manafort trial, including during jury deliberations also had the potential to influence the trial jury."
After the Special Counsel's Report
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initially continued to resist calls for impeachment. In May 2019, she indicated that Trump's continued actions, which she characterized as obstruction of justice and refusal to honor congressional subpoenas, might make an impeachment inquiry necessary. An increasing number of Democrats and a then-Republican representative of the House, Justin Amash, were requesting such an inquiry.- introduced on January 3, 2019, by Representative Sherman : immediately referred to the House Judiciary Committee and to Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on February 4, 2019.
- introduced on March 27, 2019, by Representative Rashida Tlaib : referred to the House Rules Committee.
- introduced on May 22, 2019, by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee : referred to the House Rules Committee.
- introduced on July 17, 2019, by Representative Green : a privileged resolution which was blocked from proceeding by a vote of 332–95.
Soon after the release of the Mueller report, Trump began urging an investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, wanting to "investigate the investigators" and possibly discredit the conclusions of the FBI and Mueller. In April 2019, Attorney General William Barr announced that he had launched a review of the origins of the FBI's investigation, even though the origins of the probe were already being investigated by the Justice Department's inspector general and by U.S. attorney John W. Huber, who had been appointed to the same task in 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Barr assigned U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead the probe, and Trump directed the U.S. Intelligence Community to "promptly provide assistance and information" to Barr, and delegated to him the "full and complete authority" to declassify any related documents. Although Durham was nominally in charge of the investigation, Barr himself began contacting foreign governments to ask for information about the origins of the FBI probe. Barr personally traveled to the United Kingdom and Italy to seek information; the Italian Parliament is expected to begin its own investigation into Barr's meetings with Italian intelligence agencies. At Barr's request, Trump himself phoned the prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, to ask for assistance.