US House Judiciary report laying out grounds for impeachment

The US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's Democratic lawmakers have released a 55-page report detailing offenses that could warrant impeachment against President Donald Trump.

The document, which was released on Saturday, was prepared by congressional staff and counsel.

The report covers the "constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment," including bribery, abuse of power, betrayal of America’s national interest and corruption.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler wrote in a foreword to the document that while earlier reports "remain useful points of reference," they "no longer reflect the best available learning on questions relating to presidential impeachment."

Read the complete report here: 

Judiciary Impeachment Process

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Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are meeting this weekend behind closed doors to sort through evidence against Trump and draft articles of impeachment that the panel could recommend for a full House vote on Thursday, according to Reuters.

On Friday, the White House told Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler it would not participate in the hearings and called the impeachment inquiry "completely baseless" and said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had ordered Democrats to draft articles of impeachment "before your committee has heard a single shred of evidence."

"House Democrats have wasted enough of America's time with this charade," White House counsel Pat Cipollone's letter to Nadler said. "You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings."

Nadler said in a statement: "The American people deserve answers from President Trump."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday instructed the House Judiciary Committee to draft articles of impeachment against the Republican president, assuring that a formal impeachment process against the US president will proceed.

The committee could draft and recommend the articles by next Thursday and the House could vote on them by Christmas.

Three House committees are writing a report detailing their findings in Trump’s impeachment inquiry, which is expected to serve as the basis for an impeachment resolution, or “articles of impeachment”.  

Impeachment begins in the House. If the lower chamber of Congress approves articles of impeachment, a trial is then held in the Senate. House members act as the prosecutors; the senators as jurors; the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides.

Trump is likely to become just the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

Only two American presidents have been impeached by the House, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither Johnson nor Clinton was convicted by the Senate.

In 1974, then US President Richard Nixon resigned in the face of certain impeachment and removal from office over the Watergate scandal.

Top US Democratic lawmaker tells House to draft impeachment articles against Trump

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said she has instructed the House Judiciary panel to draft articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

A majority of members in the House, which id controlled by Democrats, have expressed their intention to back the deeply divisive impeachment procedure.

House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump in September after the unknown whistle-blower alleged the Republican president pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

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