President Donald Trump will become just the third president to face articles of impeachment when House Democrats unveil the documents early Tuesday morning, according to reports by multiple news organizations.
The Democrats will accuse Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, according to reports from the New York Times, Washington Post, AP, CNN, and many other outlets. On Monday night, Democrats announced a news conference for 9 a.m. ET Tuesday on Capitol Hill to share the next steps in the impeachment inquiry.
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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi convened a meeting of the impeachment committee chairmen at her office in the Capitol late Monday evening, following an acrimonious nine-hour meeting of the Judiciary Committee, to hammer out the details of what happens next.
“This is not a happy day, but I think we are doing what we have to do,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel told reporters as he left a meeting.
The Democrats claim Trump violated his oath of office by attempted to coerce Ukraine to investigate his political opponents in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid. They also claim he obstructed the work of Congress by stonewalling their investigations into the matter.
Sources speaking to the Washington Post said the full House would vote on the articles of impeachment next week after they are debated this week in the Judiciary Committee, beginning Thursday.
Some Democrats had pushed for a third article of impeachment related to the obstruction of justice charges laid out in the Mueller report, but centrist Democrats wanted to keep the focus on Ukraine.
READ: It’s official: Pelosi asks for articles of impeachment
While Trump spent a large part of Monday tweeting about the impeachment inquiry, he has yet to respond directly to the reports of the impending articles of impeachment. The White House has also not commented.
Pelosi would not get into the specifics of the articles of impeachment at an event on Monday evening, but when asked if she had enough votes to impeach the president, the Speaker said:
“On an issue like this, we don’t count the votes. People will just make their voices known on it,” Pelosi said at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council. “I haven’t counted votes, nor will I.”
Cover: In this Dec. 6, 2019, photo, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., discusses her recent visit to the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
