impeachment against president trump. and that of course makes this a historic day in its own right. but by reading the political tea leaves sort of looking at the restraint and the small seat conservative approach democrats took to drawing up these articles i think it s fair to say not just this is big day because these articles have been release today the public today. i think this is big day and this will go down in history because looking at the way this is going to go, and looking at what democrats are effectively charging the president with here, it now seems to be just overwhelmingly likely that not just is this an effort by the democrats in the house and by the house of representatives more broadly to impeach president trump, it seems i think clear and fair to conclude this far-out that president trump will soon become only the
alleged against president trump or even everything that was discussed over the course of these impeachment proceedings. these two quick articles of impeachment, these two articles on abuse of power and obstruction, amount to a short sharp shock of an indictment against the president. they didn t go wide, they went narrow. even so, though, even with this tightly focused approach from the house of representatives, there s still a couple of surprises in these two short of articles of impeachment. we re going to be talking about that in just a few minutes. but before we get there, can we also just take a moment to appreciate this for a second? because this had to happen today of all days, really? raise your hand if you think that maybe this was not the first choice from the trump white house for how the president should spend the day on which the articles of impeachment against him were unveiled. because you recognize this guy,
trump s previous invitations of foreign interference in u.s. elections. in all of this, president trump abused the powers of the presidency by ignore [injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit. he has betrayed the nation by a abusing his high office. where for president trump by such conduct has demonstrated he will remain a threat to national security and the constitution if allowed to remain in office and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. president trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the united states. but the sort of the start of ending of that article, these actions were consistent with president trump s previous invitations of foreign interference in u.s. elections, that is echoed towards the end
of the second article of impeachment. the second article of impeachment, same thing. quote, these actions were consistent with president trump s previous efforts to undermine u.s. government investigations into foreign interference in u.s. elections. so, no, they did not do a separate article of impeachment against president trump about president trump welcoming russia s interference in the 2016 elections and him, you know, trying to take maximum advantage of their interference in our election at his behalf. and no, they didn t do a separate article of impeachment based on volume 2 of the mueller report and all the ways mueller found president trump tried to impede and obstruct it investigation into russia s interference and the russia related investigation into members of his campaign and members of his administration. there aren t specific articles of impeachment that are about that scandal in 2016.
but what they are about to impeach him on is his behavior towards ukraine and they are explicitly noting that his behavior towards ukraine fits the pattern of what he did with russia for the 2016 election, too. and when democrats talk about the speed with which they re moving forward in these impeachment proceedings, that s what they said today, they need to move quickly now in advance of the 2020 elekds to try to deter him in inviting and trying to further extort foreign powers in interfering on his behalf as well. politico.com reporting tonight when article of impeachment are voted out which will likely be this week, the house tends to file a lengthily report expounding on this point and specifically the evidence turned up in the mueller investigation and how the president s behavior is a coherent pattern between both the scandal of his treatment of ukraine and the scandal of his involvement with