The Democrat-led House Intelligence Committee voted on Tuesday to adopt a report summarising its findings from an ongoing impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump, paving the way for the next stage of the fast-moving investigation.
Lawmakers voted 13 to 9 to allow the House panel chaired by Adam Schiff to hand over the report to the House Judiciary Committee, which is taking over the impeachment inquiry and is responsible for drafting any articles of impeachment against Trump.
The party-line vote came hours after House Democrats publicly released the report that called evidence of Trump’s alleged misconduct and obstruction of Congress “overwhelming”.
Republican Congressman Mark Meadows, a Trump ally, quickly tweeted his response to the vote, calling Democrats’ efforts “baseless and nakedly partisan”.
“Bottom line: Democrats can write what they want, but they can’t provide any serious evidence supporting this latest conspiracy theory. And they know it,” Meadows wrote.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing or a “quid pro quo”. The White House has refused to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry, accusing Democrats of an unfair process.
Steering the inquiry into a new phase, the House Judiciary Committee led by Democrat Jerry Nadler is scheduled to hear from four legal experts in the panel’s first hearing on Wednesday.
Nadler has said they “expect to discuss the constitutional framework through which the House may analyse the evidence gathered in the present inquiry” and whether Trump’s alleged actions “warrant the House’s exercising its authority to adopt articles of impeachment”.
However, neither Trump, who is in London for a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit, nor his counsel Pat Cipollone will attend the hearing.
In a letter to Nadler on Sunday, Cipollone said the White House won’t participate in Wednesday’s hearing, citing concerns that the House Judiciary Committee won’t afford Trump “a fair process”.
House Democrats are conducting an impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his office by pressuring Ukraine into launching investigations that could benefit him politically. Investigators are also examining whether the Republican tied a White House meeting or aid to Ukraine to those investigations.
Wednesday’s report was a result of a months-long, Democrat-led investigation based on testimony from 17 current and former Trump administration officials who had offered their narratives of the White House’s handling of its Ukraine policy. -Xinhua
