Committee
Chairman Adam Schiff said the committee would vote Tuesday night [Dec. 3, 2019]
on formally submitting it to the Judiciary Committee, whose members will decide
whether to draw up articles of impeachment against Trump.
The
Judiciary Committee is scheduled to start its own impeachment hearings
Wednesday, and will do so without a Trump lawyer present.
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Trump
also criticized Democrats for holding the hearing at the time he will be
attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's leaders' summit in London.
"Just
landed in the United Kingdom, heading to London for NATO meetings
tomorrow," Trump tweeted late Monday.
"Prior to landing I read the Republicans Report on the Impeachment
Hoax. Great job! Radical Left has NO CASE. Read the transcripts. Shouldn't even be allowed. Can we go to Supreme Court to stop?"
Wednesday's
hearing will focus on the constitutional grounds surrounding impeaching a
president with four legal scholars appearing as witnesses. The Judiciary Committee announced Monday a
witness list of law professors Noah Feldman of Harvard University, Pamela
Karlan of Stanford University, Michael Gerhardt of the University of North
Carolina, and Jonathan Turley of George Washington University.
Trump
also pointed to fresh comments by Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskiy
claiming that he never spoke with the U.S. president "from the position of
a quid pro quo."
Zelenskiy
also told reporters for four magazines (Time, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and Gazeta
Wyborcza) that at a time Ukraine is at war with Russia, the United States, as
Kyiv's strategic partner, should not have been blocking military aid.
"I
think that's just about fairness. It's not about a quid pro quo," said
Zelenskiy.
Trump
seized on that comment as further vindication from Democrats' allegations that
Trump withheld support to Ukraine until the country helped dig up dirt on
former Vice President Joe Biden, now a leading contender to challenge Trump in
next year's election.
Zelenskiy
"just came out a little while ago and he said, ‘President Trump did
absolutely nothing wrong' and that should end everything," the U.S.
president said Monday.
White
House counsel Pat Cipollone, in a letter to Nadler late Sunday, said the Trump
administration "cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing
while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether
the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through
additional hearings."
Cipollone
said he will reply by the end of the week on whether the White House would
appear at future hearings.
Nadler
assured Trump and his counsel in his invitation letter last week that he
"remains committed to ensuring a fair and informative process."
The
Judiciary Committee chairman added the president has the "opportunity to
be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about
the process."
Possible
charges that could lead to Trump's impeachment include bribery and high crimes
and misdemeanors.
Trump
is accused of holding up nearly $400 million in badly-needed military aid to
Ukraine in exchange for Zelenskiy's public commitment to investigate Biden for
alleged corruption.
Biden's
son, Hunter, sat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Trump
alleges that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to hold up U.S. loan
guarantees to Ukraine, unless the government fired a prosecutor who was
investigating Burisma.
Trump
also insists it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 U.S.
election on behalf of Democrats.
No
evidence against the Bidens has ever surfaced and the charge against Ukraine
was based on a debunked conspiracy theory that originated in Russia.
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