Nadler invited Trump and his Attorneys to attend First House Committee Impeachment Hearing

Listen to this article

The U.S President Donald Trump has been formally invited to an impeachment hearing at the House Judiciary Committee, scheduled for 4^th December. The legal experts in the Committee will determine whether the president’s alleged abuses of power in his handling of Ukraine and its military aid constitute high crimes and misdemeanors as established in the U.S constitution. The Committee Chair, Jerry Nadler has invited the President and his attorneys in his letter forwarded to the White House. Nadler also promised a fair and informative process. He said, “At base, the president has a choice to make: He can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process. I hope that he chooses to participate in the inquiry, directly or through counsel, as other presidents have done before him”.

Nadler gave Trump a deadline of 6 pm on 1 December to respond as to whether he will appear. He also asked for the name of his counsel. The House Judiciary Committee hearing formally launched an exploratory process to determine impeachment following 2 weeks of evidence-gathering hearings with seemingly explosive testimonies from U.S officials explicitly linking the president to calls for Ukraine’s investigation into Joe Biden and his son in exchange for military aid and a White House visit. Nadler also wrote in his letter, “We expect to discuss the constitutional framework through which the House may analyze the evidence gathered in the present inquiry”.

The Committee Chair added, “We will also discuss whether your alleged actions warrant the Houses’ exercising the authority to adopt articles of impeachment”. The request from Nadler and Committee arrives as the House Budget Committee reports that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget engaged in a pattern of abuse by withholding the aid. The summary documents of the committee from the White House budget office discovered that the Office of Management and Budget had announced a plan to withhold aid on 18 July. Days before a 25 July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as it was the heart of the impeachment probe.