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Today, in service to our duty to the constitution and to our country, the House committee on the judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment charging the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, with committing high crimes and misdemeanours.
The first article is for abuse of power. It is an impeachable offence for the president to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest. That is exactly what President Trump did when he solicited and pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 presidential election, thus damaging our national security, undermining the integrity of the next election, and violating his oath to the American people.
These actions, moreover, are consistent with President Trump's previous invitations of foreign interference in our 2016 presidential election. And when he was caught, when the House investigated and opened an impeachment inquiry, President Trump engaged in unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry.
This gives rise to the second article of impeachment, for obstruction of Congress. Here too we see a familiar pattern in President Trump's misconduct. A president who declares himself above accountability, above the American people, and above Congress's power of impeachment, which is meant to protect against threats to our democratic institutions, is a president who sees himself as above the law. We must be clear. No one, not even the president, is above the law.