The first session of the House Judiciary Committee today turned into a cross-party fight, with Democrats demanding the impeachment of President Donald Trump for his involvement in foreign meddling in US elections, while Republicans angrily repeated that there was no reason for it, and the White House declined the invitation to send a representative to today's meeting.
Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, opened the meeting by saying: "The facts before us are undisputed": Trump's phone call with Ukraine's president in July was not the first time Trump had asked a foreign country to influence a US election, as in 2016 there was interference by Russia, and if nothing was done, Trump could do it again in the campaign before the presidential election next year.
"We cannot wait for the elections to respond to the crisis," Nadler said.
"The president has shown his pattern of behavior. If we don't work on control, President Trump will almost certainly try again to request meddling in the election for his personal political gain," which he would achieve by slandering his opponent from the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, i.e. the allegedly illegal of his son's work in Ukraine".
Republicans have protested the impeachment inquiry as unfair to the president, dismissing as baseless the allegations they see as part of an effort to overturn the 2016 election and remove Trump from office.
"You just don't like him," said Republican Rep. Doug Collins.
He called the action a "disgrace".
Several Republicans immediately objected to the process, interjecting procedural issues, planning to repeatedly interrupt the session and questioning the rules.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats "have not yet decided" whether there will be a vote to impeach Trump.
But a vote before the end of the year has become increasingly likely since the release of a 300-page report by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, which found the president "seriously dereliction" of duty.
The chairman of that committee, Democrat Adam Schiff, told the AP that "Americans need to understand that this president is putting his personal political interests above theirs and is endangering the country."
The Judiciary Committee heard from legal experts today, specifically addressing whether Trump's actions stemming from a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reached the constitutionally defined level of "bribery" or "serious crimes and other serious misdemeanors" required to shifting.
The report cites evidence that Democrats say shows Trump's efforts to seek foreign interference in the US election and then obstruct a House investigation.
Trump told reporters in London, where he was attending a NATO meeting, that he doubted many would watch the broadcast of today's hearing "because it will be boring."
The political risks are high for both parties, as the House of Representatives is conducting only the fourth impeachment inquiry in US history.
Based on a two-month investigation prompted by a complaint from a still-unknown whistleblower, the probe into Trump-Ukraine ties relies heavily on testimony from current and former US officials who refused White House orders not to participate.
Republicans are defending the president, arguing that Trump did not intend to pressure Ukraine when he asked for a "favor" - an investigation into his expected future Democratic presidential challenger, Biden, and his son.
They also say that the military aid retained by the White House was not used as a means of pressuring Ukraine, while it is facing an aggressive Russia on its border - as the Democrats claim, and that 400 million dollars of that aid was eventually released, although only when the crisis reached the US Congress.
Democrats could begin drafting a resolution to impeach the president within days, with the Judiciary Committee voting on it next week.
The House of Representatives could vote at the end of December. Then the request to impeach Trump would go to the Senate for consideration in early 2020.
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