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The Impeachment Report: The House Intelligence Committee's Report on Its Investigation into Donald Trumpand Ukraine
The official report from the House Intelligence Committee on Donald Trump’s secret pressure campaign against Ukraine, featuring an exclusive introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author and biographer Jon Meacham
For only the fourth time in American history, the House of Representatives has conducted an impeachment inquiry into a sitting United States president. This landmark document details the findings of the House Intelligence Committee’s historic investigation of whether President Donald J. Trump committed impeachable offenses when he sought to have Ukraine announce investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Penetrating a dense web of connected activity by the president, his ambassador Gordon Sondland, his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani, and many others, these pages offer a damning, blow-by-blow account of the president’s attempts to “use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election” and his subsequent attempts to obstruct the House investigation into his actions. Published here with an introduction offering critical context from bestselling presidential historian Jon Meacham, The Impeachment Report is necessary reading for every American concerned about the fate of our democracy.
For only the fourth time in American history, the House of Representatives has conducted an impeachment inquiry into a sitting United States president. This landmark document details the findings of the House Intelligence Committee’s historic investigation of whether President Donald J. Trump committed impeachable offenses when he sought to have Ukraine announce investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Penetrating a dense web of connected activity by the president, his ambassador Gordon Sondland, his personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani, and many others, these pages offer a damning, blow-by-blow account of the president’s attempts to “use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election” and his subsequent attempts to obstruct the House investigation into his actions. Published here with an introduction offering critical context from bestselling presidential historian Jon Meacham, The Impeachment Report is necessary reading for every American concerned about the fate of our democracy.
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 10, 2019
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September 26, 2024Once again a book I'm not going to rate. Did I enjoy reading it? No. What about the writing? It is mostly testimony, tweets, and formal government reports. No, the writing isn't noteworthy. It's a painful formal record of what amounts to a trial. Do I rate it 5 because of its importance? Do I rate it a zero because of its gut wrenching content? How do I rate it in a manner that reflects my opinion of its contents? I won't because any rating I give it could be easily misinterpreted.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in today's politics, American history, or how Congress actually works.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in today's politics, American history, or how Congress actually works.
January 22, 2020
For the first time in history, I’ve tried to go back to all of the public documents to allow me to make my own decisions on the outcome of Trump. A President, that I’ve had an issue with as he consistently demeans the most powerful office in the world.
Unlike the Meuller Report - which pointed out Russia’s tampering of the US Election, and Trump’s refusal to see that that is a major issue for our country now and going forward.
This document gives you both sides, the articles of Impeachment, which the keep referring to as the Democrats Articles (which should show you just how divided we’ve become). However, it also adds the Republican rebuttal in the later half sub sections, essentially pointing out the faults in the democratic process of investigation.
Regardless of which side of the party lines you fall on, this book should be read by every American to make their own decision about what is good for the people of this country.
To go in with the decision that you’ll just tow the party line, I think is a dangerous balancing act which we seem to be witnessing at this time.
Highly recommend!
Unlike the Meuller Report - which pointed out Russia’s tampering of the US Election, and Trump’s refusal to see that that is a major issue for our country now and going forward.
This document gives you both sides, the articles of Impeachment, which the keep referring to as the Democrats Articles (which should show you just how divided we’ve become). However, it also adds the Republican rebuttal in the later half sub sections, essentially pointing out the faults in the democratic process of investigation.
Regardless of which side of the party lines you fall on, this book should be read by every American to make their own decision about what is good for the people of this country.
To go in with the decision that you’ll just tow the party line, I think is a dangerous balancing act which we seem to be witnessing at this time.
Highly recommend!
October 15, 2025
It's helpful. The formatting is weird.
Now that Daddy Trump is back in power you're trying to suck back up to all the support whose head you tried to bash in trying to assume power when you thought it was you and just you who beat him out of office. Oh look at that. He's back. Just like Putin.
It's apparently literally in Putin's history that he took a "break" after he had two consecutive terms, then came back. Just like Trump. We have pictures of Trump in a Teddy Roosevelt style situation, the one president who sought a third term. All of this happened before there with Putin, just nobody cared. They said "Oh that's Russia, that won't affect me, we're a first world country." Now we're basically a second world country right there with them. Our courts are literal slavic squat pooping in grate level from at least the examination of Washington State. "Oh Teddy Roosevelt did it, let's have Trump try." You can predict it, you can equip them for it all day, and then you walk around and ask for $5 then nothing. Then it turns out you're right and who tries to sidle up next to you again when you were right the whole time but this time you've found out they tried to bash your head in assuming power high on the whole beating Trump thing. Oh no. The person whose head you tried to bash in trying to "secure your power" and "now show the people who's the real boss now that you've got it" wants nothing to do with it. Or you could have just read about Russia and realized this is exactly what happened with Putin. The return of the king vomit sequel phenomenon. Happened in Russia first. You can prepare them all day and it doesn't click. They're in such narcissistic rage and envy the preparation does literally 0 they can't hear over it. It's just hopeless.
You say, the economy's going to crash and burn again, he's going to use cuts in federal spending to force loyalty and illegal action again, guess what. If you had read a book on Putin how he starving dogs every last one of Russia's overbroad assets, you would know a Putin starving dog technique when you see one of the military and federal government officials not doing what he wants them to do when he wants it. Nope. Got to learn the hard way. Oh, Trump's gone for good. Presidents don't leave and come back. He leaves and comes back. Just like Putin. Ohp. Got to learn the hard way. Ohp, you can't afford to express your addiction to misogynist abuse of "I can't stand you" to Kamala petty style, that you need your union to act like a union, not a defecting union joke. Nope. Chose the power high of torturing and betraying Kamala. Oh no. Look at everything crashing and burning and getting cut again now that it's under Trump just like I predicted. Oh look at that, who realized that the EXACT SAME THING would happen and now is and now is sidling up again. Yeah, let me just trust this person who tried to bash everything about my life in to make it clear who was in power now that they beat Trump only for Trump to come back just as Putin's presidency could have predicted by reading one. effing. book.
I went around campaigning "no more nightmare men" write in because Ukraine complains and complains about how they were essentially forced at gunpoint to vote for Russia and didn't feel they had a choice. Then they fire Yavonivitch and don't even known that Angela Merkel's resigned. How is this misogynist pro-trafficker trash going to fix the situation or be any better. It's like Zuckerberg going to fight out Xi Jinping. You're just white. That's the difference. You're just white. Same misogynist, covertly involved in trying to murder AOC, same violent guy with his Cossack-proving. How is that different than organ hunting. The narcissism that they're going to be so much better and they're the exact same thing but white is vomitable.
Oh, now who wants to suck up. No. It's just disgusting. You know someone is leadership material, you know someone has done things you could never do and are unbelievable to you, and then you have this coward, limp crap still calling it "potential". No. It's just a no. That's vomitable. It really is.
It's not potential. You would have been dead halfway through. It's proven and it's more than should be asked of anyone. And they're still too big of cowards to show support they're trying to get the benefits of without showing. What horrific cowards. Seriously, why does anyone become a ruler with horrific cowards like this? F the petite bourgeois. What one of them is worth it? Seriously? Who is this horrific that they can't show basic support to the point they're literally cloning them from sheer limp risk aversion so crippilingly risk averse they humiliate everybody with a copy in front of everyone. Never seen something that horrifying in my life. Says someone's got the risk aversion score of China and we can't afford it anymore at that level of power. That's all that says to me. Holy vomitable. Holy disgusting. China's notorious for being profoundly crippled by that problem, and why they likely won't be first world anytime soon because of it. Cripplingly risk aversion. The worst calculations that have 0 situational awareness I've seen in my life. With skies like that, you've got to have terrible situational awareness.
It's a scam. Ruling crap this horrific and ungrateful is a scam.
I can't make it up. No learning. Borderline switchup on literally everyone. Not learning the first time when correctly predicted. Choosing a torture high of a powerful woman whenever they show up over basically being competent.
Putin doesn't even want to rule this, he just wants to sort of look like he's doing something while doing what he enjoys doing most, playing the petulant, obnoxious torturing teenager. What real man acts like this. He just acts like some murderous teenager from hell where Mom is East Germany and he's bringing in his high school basic governance report card after Stasi spy school or whatever. He's still stuck in that mentality at this age. He doesn't even want to govern it, he just guesses and checks, gets lucky, and then starving dogs it. But in reality he doesn't really know what he's doing or if he even directly did what he's being told he did. Apparently after there was a feature on his troll farm getting Trump up he looked at it and didn't even know what he had done had worked, tried it again, and it didn't work in the Biden election. This is not someone with a super sharp causal analyticity. It's just not. He's more like a teenager with East Germany the mom where he hates mom and wants to torture her but also wants to be mom's good little dog and it hurts so bad when she doesn't like dogs. It hurts so bad when mom doesn't like dogs because he is mom's little dog, but he likes to torture her too. That's really who he is. He's terrified of his own military and says he has no control over them so he tries to starving dog them. He says he can tell them everything he wants done all day and they won't do it half the time. Then they say he's a one man power show. That's really just for more covert pathways from what he learned during his time in East Germany. More slick administrative pathways are the only way he's a one man power show, a man behind the curtain thing. But in terms of overt power, he's literally terrified of his own military, has next to no control really over what they do or don't do while trying to make it seem like he does, and ultimately just uses the starving dog method to enforce compliance.
Well, guess what's happening in the US exactly like that? Yep, we're getting second world starving dogged by Putin with the federal cuts and trying to starve the military to get it to do what he wants it do. That's his big technique abroad. Afghanistan? Starving dog it. Kurdish issues? Starving dog it. You see this kind of thing, you should think "Putin hard at work". That is exactly what's happening. I'm this right and I have no backup. I just want to stand there and vomit.
This man doesn't really know what he's doing and doesn't really want to rule the US. He just wants to seem like he does, like a teenage boy wants to be the Prom King but if you say, now you have to do things a king does he just wants to smoke weed. Angela Merkel's more like someone who has what it takes to actually do the hard work of government. This crap about his mother is just terrifying. Just watch her have no support and take it as a personal challenge to be attracted to essentially a torture victim. It's not the dog fact, it's just how dumb this is to the actual emotional intelligence features of the situation. Like your mom looks like a torture victim. That's what that looks like.
I just feel like throwing up. I just feel like throwing up. Like I just want to stand there and throw up. I'm this right. I'm really just this correct and getting 0 support from this American sh*t. I just want to stand there and throw up. That's what I want to do right now. Meanwhile I'll have my ear chewed off about how "that's not going to work". The emotional intelligence on this Z crap is this low. I just want to stand there and throw up. Like that's what sounds good right now. The emotional intelligence is just that low. Do you ever think how low your emotional intelligence would have to be to just jump on something and slobber on it assuredly with no previous investigation, testing or research? It's not a joke. That's low. It really is.
They're just this hopeless. They're compulsively abusive to women. That's all they know how to do. They should be viewed as narcotic addicts. I mean it. If they're first thing is, let me try to scare, terrorize, torture and abuse a woman, that's just a narcotic addict. It's compulsive. They don't know what else to do. They're not competent to rule. They just need to stop. It's clearly compulsive to them. It's just a no.
Now that Daddy Trump is back in power you're trying to suck back up to all the support whose head you tried to bash in trying to assume power when you thought it was you and just you who beat him out of office. Oh look at that. He's back. Just like Putin.
It's apparently literally in Putin's history that he took a "break" after he had two consecutive terms, then came back. Just like Trump. We have pictures of Trump in a Teddy Roosevelt style situation, the one president who sought a third term. All of this happened before there with Putin, just nobody cared. They said "Oh that's Russia, that won't affect me, we're a first world country." Now we're basically a second world country right there with them. Our courts are literal slavic squat pooping in grate level from at least the examination of Washington State. "Oh Teddy Roosevelt did it, let's have Trump try." You can predict it, you can equip them for it all day, and then you walk around and ask for $5 then nothing. Then it turns out you're right and who tries to sidle up next to you again when you were right the whole time but this time you've found out they tried to bash your head in assuming power high on the whole beating Trump thing. Oh no. The person whose head you tried to bash in trying to "secure your power" and "now show the people who's the real boss now that you've got it" wants nothing to do with it. Or you could have just read about Russia and realized this is exactly what happened with Putin. The return of the king vomit sequel phenomenon. Happened in Russia first. You can prepare them all day and it doesn't click. They're in such narcissistic rage and envy the preparation does literally 0 they can't hear over it. It's just hopeless.
You say, the economy's going to crash and burn again, he's going to use cuts in federal spending to force loyalty and illegal action again, guess what. If you had read a book on Putin how he starving dogs every last one of Russia's overbroad assets, you would know a Putin starving dog technique when you see one of the military and federal government officials not doing what he wants them to do when he wants it. Nope. Got to learn the hard way. Oh, Trump's gone for good. Presidents don't leave and come back. He leaves and comes back. Just like Putin. Ohp. Got to learn the hard way. Ohp, you can't afford to express your addiction to misogynist abuse of "I can't stand you" to Kamala petty style, that you need your union to act like a union, not a defecting union joke. Nope. Chose the power high of torturing and betraying Kamala. Oh no. Look at everything crashing and burning and getting cut again now that it's under Trump just like I predicted. Oh look at that, who realized that the EXACT SAME THING would happen and now is and now is sidling up again. Yeah, let me just trust this person who tried to bash everything about my life in to make it clear who was in power now that they beat Trump only for Trump to come back just as Putin's presidency could have predicted by reading one. effing. book.
I went around campaigning "no more nightmare men" write in because Ukraine complains and complains about how they were essentially forced at gunpoint to vote for Russia and didn't feel they had a choice. Then they fire Yavonivitch and don't even known that Angela Merkel's resigned. How is this misogynist pro-trafficker trash going to fix the situation or be any better. It's like Zuckerberg going to fight out Xi Jinping. You're just white. That's the difference. You're just white. Same misogynist, covertly involved in trying to murder AOC, same violent guy with his Cossack-proving. How is that different than organ hunting. The narcissism that they're going to be so much better and they're the exact same thing but white is vomitable.
Oh, now who wants to suck up. No. It's just disgusting. You know someone is leadership material, you know someone has done things you could never do and are unbelievable to you, and then you have this coward, limp crap still calling it "potential". No. It's just a no. That's vomitable. It really is.
It's not potential. You would have been dead halfway through. It's proven and it's more than should be asked of anyone. And they're still too big of cowards to show support they're trying to get the benefits of without showing. What horrific cowards. Seriously, why does anyone become a ruler with horrific cowards like this? F the petite bourgeois. What one of them is worth it? Seriously? Who is this horrific that they can't show basic support to the point they're literally cloning them from sheer limp risk aversion so crippilingly risk averse they humiliate everybody with a copy in front of everyone. Never seen something that horrifying in my life. Says someone's got the risk aversion score of China and we can't afford it anymore at that level of power. That's all that says to me. Holy vomitable. Holy disgusting. China's notorious for being profoundly crippled by that problem, and why they likely won't be first world anytime soon because of it. Cripplingly risk aversion. The worst calculations that have 0 situational awareness I've seen in my life. With skies like that, you've got to have terrible situational awareness.
It's a scam. Ruling crap this horrific and ungrateful is a scam.
I can't make it up. No learning. Borderline switchup on literally everyone. Not learning the first time when correctly predicted. Choosing a torture high of a powerful woman whenever they show up over basically being competent.
Putin doesn't even want to rule this, he just wants to sort of look like he's doing something while doing what he enjoys doing most, playing the petulant, obnoxious torturing teenager. What real man acts like this. He just acts like some murderous teenager from hell where Mom is East Germany and he's bringing in his high school basic governance report card after Stasi spy school or whatever. He's still stuck in that mentality at this age. He doesn't even want to govern it, he just guesses and checks, gets lucky, and then starving dogs it. But in reality he doesn't really know what he's doing or if he even directly did what he's being told he did. Apparently after there was a feature on his troll farm getting Trump up he looked at it and didn't even know what he had done had worked, tried it again, and it didn't work in the Biden election. This is not someone with a super sharp causal analyticity. It's just not. He's more like a teenager with East Germany the mom where he hates mom and wants to torture her but also wants to be mom's good little dog and it hurts so bad when she doesn't like dogs. It hurts so bad when mom doesn't like dogs because he is mom's little dog, but he likes to torture her too. That's really who he is. He's terrified of his own military and says he has no control over them so he tries to starving dog them. He says he can tell them everything he wants done all day and they won't do it half the time. Then they say he's a one man power show. That's really just for more covert pathways from what he learned during his time in East Germany. More slick administrative pathways are the only way he's a one man power show, a man behind the curtain thing. But in terms of overt power, he's literally terrified of his own military, has next to no control really over what they do or don't do while trying to make it seem like he does, and ultimately just uses the starving dog method to enforce compliance.
Well, guess what's happening in the US exactly like that? Yep, we're getting second world starving dogged by Putin with the federal cuts and trying to starve the military to get it to do what he wants it do. That's his big technique abroad. Afghanistan? Starving dog it. Kurdish issues? Starving dog it. You see this kind of thing, you should think "Putin hard at work". That is exactly what's happening. I'm this right and I have no backup. I just want to stand there and vomit.
This man doesn't really know what he's doing and doesn't really want to rule the US. He just wants to seem like he does, like a teenage boy wants to be the Prom King but if you say, now you have to do things a king does he just wants to smoke weed. Angela Merkel's more like someone who has what it takes to actually do the hard work of government. This crap about his mother is just terrifying. Just watch her have no support and take it as a personal challenge to be attracted to essentially a torture victim. It's not the dog fact, it's just how dumb this is to the actual emotional intelligence features of the situation. Like your mom looks like a torture victim. That's what that looks like.
I just feel like throwing up. I just feel like throwing up. Like I just want to stand there and throw up. I'm this right. I'm really just this correct and getting 0 support from this American sh*t. I just want to stand there and throw up. That's what I want to do right now. Meanwhile I'll have my ear chewed off about how "that's not going to work". The emotional intelligence on this Z crap is this low. I just want to stand there and throw up. Like that's what sounds good right now. The emotional intelligence is just that low. Do you ever think how low your emotional intelligence would have to be to just jump on something and slobber on it assuredly with no previous investigation, testing or research? It's not a joke. That's low. It really is.
They're just this hopeless. They're compulsively abusive to women. That's all they know how to do. They should be viewed as narcotic addicts. I mean it. If they're first thing is, let me try to scare, terrorize, torture and abuse a woman, that's just a narcotic addict. It's compulsive. They don't know what else to do. They're not competent to rule. They just need to stop. It's clearly compulsive to them. It's just a no.
January 23, 2020
The Impeachment of the President is all the news recently, and most everybody has strong opinions on the matter, based, no doubt, on which media outlets they follow. Deciding which point of view is most credible isn't easy. One can find support for the President's point of view on Conservative talk radio and media, and for the Democrat's point of view in their outlets.
The only in-depth source of information to understand the basis of the Articles of Impeachment which I could find is the House Impeachment Report itself. However, the Report IS NOT written in a clear, concise narrative manner. It's a government report, a legal report, with many, many repetitive sections. The same pertinent facts are repeated in the testimony of many of the witnesses, and since the report isn't a summary or simplified analysis, the report can get repetitive and mind numbing. But given the significance of the impeachment hearings and its historical importance, it's well worth the investment in time to review "The Impeachment Report: The House Intelligence Committee's Report on Its Investigation Into Donald Trump and Ukraine". The Report details its findings of its investigation into the President's dealings with Ukraine, the related National Security implications of withholding military aid to Ukraine, and any potential obstruction of justice during the review of those actions.
At the heart of the impeachment case is that President Trump withheld Congressionally approved military aid from Ukraine, even though Ukraine needed it to combat Russian military aggression. The President also continued to delay a promised White House meeting until and unless Ukrainian President Zelenskiy made a public announcement that he would initiate an investigation of former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, intending to weaken a political opponent. President Trump also wanted a Ukrainian investigation into Putin's claim that Ukrainians, not Russians, interfered in the 2016 presidential election. That's despite the fact that our intelligence agencies, and even the Republican Senate investigations conclusively blamed Russia.
President Trump has argued that then Vice-President Joe Biden acted improperly in pressuring Ukraine to remove its top prosecutor. Trump claims that Biden applied pressure in order to thwart an investigation into a company tied to his son, Hunter Biden. However, all other sources, including European Union members, former Obama administration officials, and Ukrainian anti-corruption advocates say the Prosecutor was ousted for the opposite reason. According to Ukrainian officials, the EU, and four former American officials involved in Europe and Ukraine, the Prosecutor was removed because he WAS NOT pursuing corruption among the country's politicians. His inaction prompted international calls for his ouster, and Biden's urging for the Prosecutor's removal was consistent with EU and U.S. judgment and policy. The result is that he was ultimately removed by Ukraine's parliament.
This discussion is all contained in The House Intelligence Committee Impeachment Report. The Report provides the backup, analysis, and testimony backing up the Articles of Impeachment. The evidence presented was obtained despite the fact that President Trump has prohibited his staff from cooperating with the impeachment inquiry or providing any of the requested records.
The United States has held impeachment hearings involving Presidential wrongdoings three times in the past, and all branches of government seemed to understand that the House has a Constitutional right to conduct such hearings, and the Senate has a Constitutional duty to uphold or dismiss the Impeachment findings. Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton, for the most part, allowed the investigations to be held and allowed staff members to testify in House hearings. President Trump feels otherwise, and has instructed Executive staff members to not cooperate with these hearings, to not testify, and to not provide transcripts or records to the House. This may or may not be outright obstruction of Congress from doing something granted by the Constitution, but if it's not obstruction, the lawyers will have to redefine it. But by not cooperating, this became one of the Articles of Impeachment against the president. Had requested documents and emails been provided, and if former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton testified as initially requested by the House, Democrats feel that their case would have been stronger. Nonetheless, 17 witnesses did testify in the impeachment hearings, providing the basis for the impeachment articles.
It's safe to say with such a polarized Congress, that the Articles of Impeachment will not be supported by the Senate, and President Trump is safe from being removed from office. However, reading the Report does at least give the reader an understanding of the issues, which are difficult to understand based solely on 30-second clips from nightly TV news.
The only in-depth source of information to understand the basis of the Articles of Impeachment which I could find is the House Impeachment Report itself. However, the Report IS NOT written in a clear, concise narrative manner. It's a government report, a legal report, with many, many repetitive sections. The same pertinent facts are repeated in the testimony of many of the witnesses, and since the report isn't a summary or simplified analysis, the report can get repetitive and mind numbing. But given the significance of the impeachment hearings and its historical importance, it's well worth the investment in time to review "The Impeachment Report: The House Intelligence Committee's Report on Its Investigation Into Donald Trump and Ukraine". The Report details its findings of its investigation into the President's dealings with Ukraine, the related National Security implications of withholding military aid to Ukraine, and any potential obstruction of justice during the review of those actions.
At the heart of the impeachment case is that President Trump withheld Congressionally approved military aid from Ukraine, even though Ukraine needed it to combat Russian military aggression. The President also continued to delay a promised White House meeting until and unless Ukrainian President Zelenskiy made a public announcement that he would initiate an investigation of former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, intending to weaken a political opponent. President Trump also wanted a Ukrainian investigation into Putin's claim that Ukrainians, not Russians, interfered in the 2016 presidential election. That's despite the fact that our intelligence agencies, and even the Republican Senate investigations conclusively blamed Russia.
President Trump has argued that then Vice-President Joe Biden acted improperly in pressuring Ukraine to remove its top prosecutor. Trump claims that Biden applied pressure in order to thwart an investigation into a company tied to his son, Hunter Biden. However, all other sources, including European Union members, former Obama administration officials, and Ukrainian anti-corruption advocates say the Prosecutor was ousted for the opposite reason. According to Ukrainian officials, the EU, and four former American officials involved in Europe and Ukraine, the Prosecutor was removed because he WAS NOT pursuing corruption among the country's politicians. His inaction prompted international calls for his ouster, and Biden's urging for the Prosecutor's removal was consistent with EU and U.S. judgment and policy. The result is that he was ultimately removed by Ukraine's parliament.
This discussion is all contained in The House Intelligence Committee Impeachment Report. The Report provides the backup, analysis, and testimony backing up the Articles of Impeachment. The evidence presented was obtained despite the fact that President Trump has prohibited his staff from cooperating with the impeachment inquiry or providing any of the requested records.
The United States has held impeachment hearings involving Presidential wrongdoings three times in the past, and all branches of government seemed to understand that the House has a Constitutional right to conduct such hearings, and the Senate has a Constitutional duty to uphold or dismiss the Impeachment findings. Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton, for the most part, allowed the investigations to be held and allowed staff members to testify in House hearings. President Trump feels otherwise, and has instructed Executive staff members to not cooperate with these hearings, to not testify, and to not provide transcripts or records to the House. This may or may not be outright obstruction of Congress from doing something granted by the Constitution, but if it's not obstruction, the lawyers will have to redefine it. But by not cooperating, this became one of the Articles of Impeachment against the president. Had requested documents and emails been provided, and if former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton testified as initially requested by the House, Democrats feel that their case would have been stronger. Nonetheless, 17 witnesses did testify in the impeachment hearings, providing the basis for the impeachment articles.
It's safe to say with such a polarized Congress, that the Articles of Impeachment will not be supported by the Senate, and President Trump is safe from being removed from office. However, reading the Report does at least give the reader an understanding of the issues, which are difficult to understand based solely on 30-second clips from nightly TV news.
March 1, 2020
The First Draft of History
There are no spoilers or shockers here. If you are a student of history and have been paying attention to the events of the last four years starting with the campaign of 2016 and leading to the Senate trial in January of 2020, you know how this story goes.
Like the Mueller Report before it The Impeachment Report lays out the case for why the Democratic Party believed it not only had the evidence but the mandate of posterity to bring impeachment against the 45th president of the United States even though a Senate acquittal was a foregone conclusion.
Jon Meacham sets forth the historical pretext for both this as well as the three other cases of presidential malfeasance that prompted Congress to exercise its most extreme method of recourse. And while Richard Nixon opted to resign before impeachment charges could be brought against him, Donald Trump opted to follow the precedence established by both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton before him, to put the nation through the gutwrenching process of impeachment rather than face up to his misdeeds and resign for the good of the nation knowing there were not enough votes in the Senate to convict him. It is a demonstration of the fundamental flaw of the system devised by the founders who, like many other circumstances, seemed to be blind to the hyper-partisan extreme to which our nation could descend.
Regardless of the outcome of the conviction, America has impeached the 45th President of the United States. And that's forever a part of our history and his legacy no matter what else he accomplishes or destroys in the future.
There are no spoilers or shockers here. If you are a student of history and have been paying attention to the events of the last four years starting with the campaign of 2016 and leading to the Senate trial in January of 2020, you know how this story goes.
Like the Mueller Report before it The Impeachment Report lays out the case for why the Democratic Party believed it not only had the evidence but the mandate of posterity to bring impeachment against the 45th president of the United States even though a Senate acquittal was a foregone conclusion.
Jon Meacham sets forth the historical pretext for both this as well as the three other cases of presidential malfeasance that prompted Congress to exercise its most extreme method of recourse. And while Richard Nixon opted to resign before impeachment charges could be brought against him, Donald Trump opted to follow the precedence established by both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton before him, to put the nation through the gutwrenching process of impeachment rather than face up to his misdeeds and resign for the good of the nation knowing there were not enough votes in the Senate to convict him. It is a demonstration of the fundamental flaw of the system devised by the founders who, like many other circumstances, seemed to be blind to the hyper-partisan extreme to which our nation could descend.
Regardless of the outcome of the conviction, America has impeached the 45th President of the United States. And that's forever a part of our history and his legacy no matter what else he accomplishes or destroys in the future.
July 9, 2020
“The Impeachment Report: the House Committee’s Report on It’s Investigation Into Donald Trump and Ukraine” was released by publisher Broadway Books Trade Paperbacks Original in 2019. This release contains a forward by Pulitzer-winning presidential biographer Jon Meacham.
The official report has two sections. The first section has 8 subsections about “President Misconduct”. Section 2 has 8 subsections about Obstruction of House Representatives impeachment inquiry. The publication also has a 30 page preface and executive summary. Section 1 includes 1,060 endnotes and Section 2 contains 440 endnotes. The book has no key word or topic page index. The lack of an index and no dissenting reference notes caused me to lower my publication rating. (P)
The official report has two sections. The first section has 8 subsections about “President Misconduct”. Section 2 has 8 subsections about Obstruction of House Representatives impeachment inquiry. The publication also has a 30 page preface and executive summary. Section 1 includes 1,060 endnotes and Section 2 contains 440 endnotes. The book has no key word or topic page index. The lack of an index and no dissenting reference notes caused me to lower my publication rating. (P)
March 11, 2020
I’ll leave a few excerpts from Jon Meacham’s introduction:
1) Divisions of opinion are inherent elements in a democracy
2) The free flow of information and a respect for facts over opinions, or reason over tribe, are critical elements in the life of a republic
3) this quote from TR “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
1) Divisions of opinion are inherent elements in a democracy
2) The free flow of information and a respect for facts over opinions, or reason over tribe, are critical elements in the life of a republic
3) this quote from TR “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
January 12, 2022
Purely informative and educational but I feel this document will become increasingly more important in American Democracy. I wanted to review it given the current situation in Eastern Europe. In retrospect, it is clear that our former president was working harder to push Vladimir Putin’s agenda than serving the American people.
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March 4, 2021I didn't rate it because it's just a record of what happened. My opinion about the legal and political issues isn't the point.
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