An impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump was initiated in the United States by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on September 24, 2019, after a whistleblower alleged that Trump may have abused the power of the presidency by withholding military aid as a means of pressuring newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to perform two favors: to pursue investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and to support a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. More than a week after Trump had put a hold on the previously approved military aid, he made the aforementioned requests in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president, which the whistleblower alleged was intended to help Trump's reelection bid.
Believing that critical military aid would be revoked, Zelensky made plans to announce investigations of the Bidens on the September 13 episode of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. After Trump was told of the whistleblower complaint in late August, and elements of the events had begun to leak, the aid was released on September 11 and the planned interview was cancelled. Trump declassified a non-verbatim transcript of the call on September 24, the day the impeachment inquiry began. The whistleblower's complaint was given to Congress the following day and subsequently released to the public. The White House corroborated several of the allegations, including that a record of the call between Trump and Zelensky had been stored in a highly restricted system in the
White House normally reserved for classified information.
In October, three full Congressional committees (Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs) deposed witnesses including Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor, Laura Cooper (the top Pentagon official overseeing Ukraine-related U.S. policy), and former White House official Fiona Hill.
Witnesses testified that Trump wanted Zelensky to publicly announce investigations into the Bidens and Burisma (a Ukrainian natural gas company on whose board Hunter Biden had served) and 2016 election interference. On October 8, in a letter from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to House Speaker Pelosi, the White House officially responded that it would not cooperate with the investigation due to concerns including that there had not yet been a vote of the full House and that interviews of witnesses were being conducted behind closed doors. On October 17, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said, in response to a reporter's allegation of quid pro quo: "We do that all the time with foreign policy. Get over it." He walked back his comments later in the day, asserting that there had been "absolutely no quid pro quo" and that Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine over concerns of the country's corruption.
On October 31, the House of Representatives voted 232–196 to establish procedures for public hearings, which started on November 13. As hearings began, House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Adam Schiff said President Trump may have committed bribery, which is specifically listed as an impeachable offense in the Constitution. Private and public congressional testimony by twelve government witnesses in November 2019 presented a significant body of evidence indicating that Trump demanded a quid pro quo of political favors in exchange for official action. On December 3, the House Intelligence Committee published a report stating that "the impeachment inquiry has found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection.":
On December 10, the House Judiciary Committee unveiled their articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress. Three days later, the Judiciary Committee voted along party lines (23–17) to approve both articles; the full House is expected to vote on them on December 18.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_inquiry_against_Donald_Trump
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