House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is charging that President Donald Trump clearly may have committed “bribery” along with “high crimes and misdemeanors,” both of which are outlined in the U.S. Constitution as impeachable offenses. Chairman Schiff made the allegations less than one day before the start of public witness testimony in the impeachment inquiry that will be televised live across the nation.
“Bribery, first of all, as the founders understood bribery, it was not as we understand it in law today. It was much broader,” Schiff told NPR Tuesday afternoon (audio below). “It connoted the breach of the public trust in a way where you’re offering official acts for some personal or political reason, not in the nation’s interest.”
Schiff says it will have to be proven that Trump was “soliciting something of value,” when he engaged in what is now widely seen as a months-long campaign of extortion of Ukraine. Trump held up $400 million of congressionally-approved military aid while extorting the President of Ukraine to manufacture false evidence against Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, to help tTrump win re-election in 2020.
“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,” Schiff said. “And 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.”
Wednesday’s hearing will be televised live on the major broadcast networks and the major cable news channels, starting at 10 AM ET.
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