House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says he believes President Donald Trump’s possible impeachable offenses include bribery – as the impeachment hearings prepare to go live on TV with its first witnesses.
Schiff, who is leading the Democrat’s impeachment inquiry, told NPR on Tuesday that he can already see clear arguments that Trump committed ‘bribery’, as well as ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’.
‘On the basis of what the witnesses have had to say so far, there are any number of potentially impeachable offenses: including bribery, including high crimes and misdemeanors,’ he said on the eve of the televised hearings.
‘The basic allegations against the president are that he sought foreign interference in a U.S. election, that he conditioned official acts on the performance of these political favors.
‘Those official acts include a White House meeting that the president of Ukraine desperately sought with President Trump, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded military assistance for a country that is at war with Russia and a country that the United States has a deep national security interest in making sure it can defend itself.’
Adam Schiff, who is leading the Democrat’s impeachment inquiry, said Tuesday that he can already see clear arguments that Trump committed ‘bribery’, as well as ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’
The impeachment inquiry is focused on accusations that Trump improperly withheld security money as leverage to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden.
‘I’ve always thought that the strongest argument for impeachment was also the strongest argument against it, which is: If you don’t impeach a president who commits conduct of this kind, what does that say to the next president about what they can do and to the next Congress?’ Schiff said.
‘At the same time, if you do impeach, but the president is acquitted, what does that say to the next president? The next Congress? There’s no good or simple answer.’
Republicans and Democrats in Congress set battle lines on Tuesday ahead of televised hearings on the impeachment inquiry.
The hearings, due to start at 10am on Wednesday and continue into next week, will push the inquiry into a critical new phase, with witnesses giving their first public testimony on whether Trump pressured Ukraine to target one of the president’s domestic political rivals with an investigation.
Schiff has vowed to thwart ‘sham investigations’ into Biden’s family and also said he would not allow the hearings to be derailed by a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine – not Russia – interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.
Some Republicans have defended Trump’s dealings with Ukraine by saying he was motivated by a desire to root out corruption in the Eastern European nation and get to the bottom of the election meddling four years ago.
Schiff’s comments in a note to committee members suggested he would not allow Republicans to call Biden’s son Hunter and the whistleblower who triggered the impeachment probe after a Trump phone call with Ukraine’s leader as witnesses.
As leader of the Democratic majority on the intelligence panel, Schiff controls which witnesses testify.
The impeachment inquiry is focused on accusations that Donald Trump improperly withheld security money as leverage to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden
The anonymous whistleblower set off the impeachment probe after Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a phone call on July 25 to investigate the Bidens.
The witnesses this week will be U.S. diplomats who voiced concern over Trump’s asking Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, on unspecified allegations of corruption.
On Wednesday and Friday, U.S. diplomats William Taylor, George Kent and Marie Yovanovitch are due to detail in public their concerns, previously expressed in testimony behind closed doors, that Trump and his administration sought to tie the security aid to investigations that might benefit his 2020 re-election bid.
Trump and some of his supporters have argued that the funds – approved by the U.S. Congress to help combat Russia-backed separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine – were blocked by Trump to press Zelenskiy’s government to fight corruption, not to seek an investigation of Biden and his son.
Democrats have argued that Trump abused his power in pressing a vulnerable U.S. ally to carry out investigations that would benefit Trump politically.
Trump has denied there was a quid pro quo – or exchanging a favor for a favor – in his dealings with Ukraine. He defended his call with Zelenskiy as ‘perfect’ and branded the probe a politically motivated hoax.
Schiff also announced witnesses for hearings next week, some of whom were requested by Republicans, including Kurt Volker, a special envoy to Ukraine, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale and White House National Security Council aide Tim Morrison.
Hunter Biden was not on the witness list, but a Republican aide said the party had not formally notified which of their witnesses had been rejected.
The impeachment investigation began in September after a whistleblower within the U.S. intelligence community brought a complaint against Trump over his July 25 call with Zelenskiy
Ambassador William Taylor and State Department official George Kent are the first witnesses at Wednesday’s televised impeachment hearing
A statement from Schiff’s office said that he had ‘accepted all of the Minority requests that are within the scope of the impeachment inquiry.’
House Republicans met behind closed doors late on Tuesday to plot strategy over the hearings.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said his party members would ‘just put the facts out there…there was no pressure. The Ukraine president said there was no pressure. There was nothing that Ukraine did (to) take any action and the money was released.’
Schiff, in his note to panel members, wrote that the inquiry and hearings ‘will not serve as venues for any Member to further the same sham investigations into the Bidens or into debunked conspiracies about 2016 U.S. election interference that President Trump pressed Ukraine to undertake for his personal political benefit.’
Schiff, who has become a key target of Trump’s attacks in recent weeks, added that the panel would not ‘facilitate’ any effort to threaten, intimidate or retaliate against the whistleblower, a U.S. intelligence official.
Only intelligence committee members and staff would be allowed to ask questions in the hearings, said Schiff, adding that Republicans’ list of suggested witnesses was being evaluated and additional witnesses would be announced this week.
The investigation, formally launched six weeks ago by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has shadowed Trump’s presidency with the threat that he could be removed from office even as he seeks re-election next year.
‘President Trump’s pressure campaign was ‘out of bounds,’ and every time he insists that it was ‘perfect’ he is saying that he is above the law,’ Pelosi said on Twitter.
Trump is the fourth U.S. president to face impeachment. None were removed from office, although Richard Nixon resigned as he faced almost certain impeachment in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.
Rep. Adam Schiff spelled out rules for the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday
The White House has refused to cooperate with the probe and a number of administration officials have failed to show up to testify behind closed doors.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Trump has considered firing the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, who first reported the whistle-blower’s complaints to Congress.
Trump, who appointed Atkinson in 2017, in recent weeks has continued to discuss with aides the possibility of firing him, The Times reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the internal discussions.
For the past two weeks, House investigators have been releasing transcripts of interviews conducted behind closed doors with witnesses, including U.S. diplomats who have expressed concerns about dealings with Ukraine by administration officials and the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Trump has intensified his attacks on the investigation ahead of the public hearings, which threaten to crowd out other issues like the economy and immigration as voters turn their minds to the November 2020 election.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and branded the investigation a hoax. In a tweet on Tuesday, he said the Bidens should be called to testify. Biden has denied any wrongdoing related to Ukraine by him or his son.
House Democrats consider the open hearings as crucial to building public support for a vote on articles of impeachment – formal charges – against Trump.
If that occurs, the 100-seat Republican-controlled Senate would hold a trial. Republicans have so far shown little interest in removing Trump from office.
White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said in a court filing on Tuesday that he would not bring a lawsuit challenging a subpoena for his testimony, though he said that at Trump’s direction he would not cooperate with investigators.
The president also suggested on Tuesday that he would likely release the transcript of an April 12 conversation with Zelenskiy ‘before week’s end,’ but gave no other details.