{"id":6827,"date":"2019-11-12T23:54:33","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T23:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/?p=6827"},"modified":"2019-11-12T23:54:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T23:54:35","slug":"risks-for-all-sides-as-trump-impeachment-hearings-swing-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/2019\/11\/12\/risks-for-all-sides-as-trump-impeachment-hearings-swing-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Risks for all sides as Trump impeachment hearings swing open"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, <\/span>November12: The closed doors of the Trump impeachment investigation are swinging wide open.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the gavel strikes at the start of the House hearing Wednesday morning, America and the rest of the world will have the chance to see and hear for themselves for the first time about President Donald Trump\u2019s actions toward Ukraine and consider whether they are, in fact, impeachable offenses.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a remarkable moment, even for a White House full of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

All on TV, committee leaders will set the stage, then comes the main feature: Two seasoned diplomats, William Taylor, the graying former infantry officer now charge d\u2019affaires in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in Washington, telling the striking, if sometimes complicated story of a president allegedly using foreign policy for personal and political gain ahead of the 2020 election.<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, the narrative is splitting Americans, mostly along the same lines as Trump\u2019s unusual presidency. The Constitution sets a dramatic, but vague, bar for impeachment, and there\u2019s no consensus yet that Trump\u2019s actions at the heart of the inquiry meet the threshold of \u201chigh crimes and misdemeanors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether Wednesday\u2019s proceedings begin to end a presidency or help secure Trump\u2019s position, it\u2019s certain that his chaotic term has finally arrived at a place he cannot control and a force, the constitutional system of checks and balances, that he cannot ignore.<\/span><\/p>\n

The country has been here just three times before, and never against the backdrop of social media and real-time commentary, including from the president himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese hearings will address subjects of profound consequence for the Nation and the functioning of our government under the Constitution,\u201d said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee leading the inquiry, in a memo to lawmakers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schiff called it a \u201csolemn undertaking,\u201d and counseled colleagues to \u201capproach these proceedings with the seriousness of purpose and love of country that they demand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTotal impeachment scam,\u201d tweeted the president, as he does virtually every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Impeachments are rare, historians say, because they amount to nothing short of the nullification of an election. Starting down this road poses risks for both Democrats and Republicans as proceedings push into the 2020 campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike the Watergate hearings and Richard Nixon, there is not yet a \u201ccancer on the presidency\u201d moment galvanizing public opinion. Nor is there the national shrug, as happened when Bill Clinton\u2019s impeachment ultimately didn\u2019t result in his removal from office. It\u2019s perhaps most like the partisanship-infused impeachment of Andrew Johnson after the Civil War.<\/span><\/p>\n

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was initially reluctant to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. As Democrats took control of the House in January, Pelosi said impeachment would be \u201ctoo divisive\u201d for the country. Trump, she said, was simply \u201cnot worth it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After Mueller\u2019s appearance on Capitol Hill in July for the end of the Russia probe, the door to impeachment proceedings seemed closed.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the next day Trump got on the phone.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the past month, witness after witness has testified under oath about his July 25 phone call with Ukraine\u2019s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the alarms it set off in U.S. diplomatic and national security circles.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a secure room in the Capitol basement, current and former officials have been telling lawmakers what they know. They\u2019ve said an earlier Trump call in April congratulating Zelenskiy on his election victory seemed fine. The former U.S. reality TV host and the young Ukrainian comedian hit it off.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the July call, things turned.<\/span><\/p>\n

An anonymous whistleblower first alerted officials to the phone call. \u201cI have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 election,\u201d the person wrote in August to the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Democrats fought for the letter to be released to them as required.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am deeply concerned,\u201d the whistleblower wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump insisted the call was \u201cperfect.\u201d The White House released a rough transcript. Pelosi, given the nod from her most centrist freshman lawmakers, opened the inquiry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has his opportunity to prove his innocence,\u201d she told Noticias Telemundo on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defying White House orders not to appear, witnesses have testified that Trump\u2019s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was withholding U.S. military aid to the budding democracy until the new Ukraine government conducted investigations Trump wanted into Democrats in the 2016 election and his potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter. (AP)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, November12: The closed doors of the Trump impeachment investigation are swinging wide open. When the gavel strikes at the start of the House hearing Wednesday morning, America and the rest of the world will have the chance to see and hear for themselves for the first time about President Donald Trump\u2019s actions toward Ukraine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,46,44,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6828,"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6827\/revisions\/6828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durbinnepal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}