The 658-page impeachment report finds that President Donald Trump committed multiple federal crimes and “betrayed the national interest.”
The House Judiciary Committee published the full report early Monday, ahead of a vote likely this week, and laid out the case that Trump had abused his power and obstructed Congress in its oversight role, reported Axios.
Here are five key takeaways from the report.
1. “President Trump’s abuse of power encompassed both the constitutional offense of ‘Bribery’ and multiple federal crimes,” the report states. “He has betrayed the national interest, the people of this Nation, and should not be permitted to be above the law. It is therefore all the more vital that he be removed from office.”
2. The report found that Trump acted directly and indirectly to “corruptly” solicit Ukraine’s government to announce investigations into Joe Biden and “discredited theory promoted by Russia” that Ukraine, rather than Kremlin agents, had interfered in the 2016 election.
3. “Taken together, the articles charge that President Trump has placed his personal, political interests above our national security, our free and fair elections and our systems of checks and balances,” the report says.
4. The report also alleges that Trump engaged in further wrongdoing even as the impeachment inquiry was presented in public hearings.
“President Trump also attempted to muzzle witnesses, threatening to damage their careers if they agreed to testify, and even attacked one witness during her live testimony before Congress,” the report notes.
5. “While there is no need for a crime to be proven in order for impeachment to be warranted,” the report adds, “here, President Trump’s scheme or course of conduct also encompassed other offenses, both constitutional and criminal in character, and it is appropriate for the Committee to recognize such offenses in assessing the question of impeachment.”
The report includes arguments from the committee’s Republican minority, which complained the impeachment case was “not only weak” but also “dangerously lowers the bar for future impeachments.”
Trump and his GOP allies insist he has done nothing wrong.