House Intelligence Committee Releases “The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report”

Today, the House Intelligence Committee released “The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report”.

The report states there was a “months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.” President Trump purportedly “demanded that the newly elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election.” The President then conditioned “a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary” “on the public announcement of the investigations”.

As a result, the House Committee finds that by “withholding vital military assistance and diplomatic support from a strategic foreign partner government engaged in an ongoing military conflict illegally instigated by Russia, President Trump compromised national security to advance his personal political interests.” Additionally, “the President undermined U.S. policy supporting anti-corruption reform and the rule of law in Ukraine, and undermined U.S. national security.”

Concluding, Chairman Adam Schiff and Members of the Committee recognized it “will be up to the Congress to determine whether these acts rise to the level of an impeachable offense”, and also posed the question: “[Is] impeachment warranted for a president who would use the power of his office to coerce foreign interference in a U.S. election, or is that now a mere perk of the office that Americans must simply “get over”?”