Democrats unveil 2 articles of impeachment against President Trump

WASHINGTON (FOX NEWS) - House Democrats on Tuesday announced articles of impeachment against President Trump alleging abuse of power and obstruction of Congress regarding his interactions with Ukraine, touching off a rapid-fire sequence that could result in a momentous floor vote in a matter of days.

Download the FOX 5 DC News App for Local Breaking News and Weather

“The framers of the Constitution prescribed a clear remedy for presidents who so violate their oath of office,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said. "No one, not even the president, is above the law.”

The key Democratic committee leaders, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., outlined their plans in a brief and pointed statement to the media, and left without taking questions.

Nadler said the judiciary panel will introduce two articles "charging the president with high crimes and misdemeanors." He said the first is dedicated to "abuse of power," alleging the president has "exercised the powers of his office for his personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the public interest." Nadler said Trump put himself before country while endangering national security and America's democracy.

"Trump has engaged in unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry," Nadler added, as he announced the second article focused on obstruction of Congress.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who has led much of the impeachment inquiry, called impeachment "an extraordinary remedy."

"He has given us no choice," Schiff said of Trump. "To do nothing would make ourselves complicit in the president's abuse of his high office."

Democrats unveiled articles of impeachment against US President Donald Trump, listing abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

While Republicans have blasted the process as political, dubbing it the "focus group impeachment" in response to reports that Democrats tested different allegations with focus groups, Democrats are moving swiftly ahead of the holiday break.

Pelosi directed the Judiciary Committee to proceed with drafting the measures just last week.

"The clock and the calendar should not be the basis for impeachment," House Judiciary Ranking Member Doug Collins, R-Ga., told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" minutes before the announcement.

It is unclear, at this point, whether Democrats’ articles focused on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress will reach beyond the Ukraine controversy and into former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The lawmakers did not mention such a step on Tuesday morning save for a Russia reference from Nadler.

"The integrity of our next election is at risk from our president who already sought foreign interference in the 2016 and now 2020 elections," Nadler said.

Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy or coordination between members of the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election but left the door open to whether the president obstructed the federal probe -- a point that Democrats have made in the public hearing phase of the House impeachment inquiry.

Absent from the planned charges is a “bribery” count, which Democrats have repeatedly accused the president of in regards to his highly controversial July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- in which he pressured him to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s dealings with Ukraine.

Pelosi held a meeting in her office Monday night with Nadler, D-N.Y., Schiff, D-Calif., Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., after a hearing held by Nadler’s committee that featured lawyers laying out the evidence for and against impeachment.

In drafting the articles of impeachment, Pelosi is facing a legal and political challenge of balancing the views of her majority while hitting the Constitution's high bar of "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

At the center of the impeachment inquiry is Trump’s efforts to press Zelensky to launch politically related investigations—regarding Joe Biden's effort to oust a Ukrainian prosecutor who had been looking into the natural gas firm where his son Hunter served on the board.

The president’s request came after millions in U.S. military aid to Ukraine had been frozen, which Democrats have argued shows a “quid pro quo” arrangement. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

President Donald J. Trump addresses his remarks to the Economic Club of New York Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019, at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)