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The Case for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump

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The Case for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump Updated Preface: The Ukraine Connection The Case for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump Acknowledgments This report is made possible by the 1.2 million supporters of Common Cause who believe in setting higher ethical standards for public servants and who hold power accountable to the people, regardless of political party. Thanks also to the Why Not Initiative for its support for this report and our annual Blueprint for a Greater Democracy conference. This report was written by Karen Hobert Flynn, Paul Seamus Ryan, and Common Cause Legal Fellow William Steiner. The authors wish to acknowledge Susannah Goodman and Yosef Getachew for their review and input. Thank you to Scott Blaine Swenson, Dale Eisman, and Kerstin Vogdes Diehn for their support in production & promotion, copy editing, and design. This report was originally published in July 2019. A new preface was added to the report in October 2019. © July 2019; © October 2019 New Preface—October 2019 WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT AND THE LAUNCH OF AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY On a July 25th, 2019 phone call—one day after Common Cause originally published this report— President Donald Trump repeatedly pressured Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to work with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Shortly before the phone call, President Trump had ordered the withholding of nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine.1 By involving Attorney General Barr in his request for election assistance from the head of a foreign nation, perhaps using a foreign aid package as leverage, President Trump involved the Justice De- partment, State Department and Pentagon in an apparent effort to abuse his public office for private gain, an impeachable offense. And by requesting a Ukrainian government investigation into his polit- ical opponent, President Trump seemingly violated the federal campaign finance law prohibition on soliciting a political contribution from a foreign national, also an impeachable offense. On Friday, September 20th, The Wall Street Journal broke this story2 and, on the following Monday, Common Cause filed a complaint3 with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging violations of campaign finance laws by Trump, Giuliani and others. As the Common Cause complaint makes clear, this phone call was not an isolated incident—it was the tip of the iceberg. Going back at least to January 2019, Giuliani and others have been meeting with Ukraine government officials urging them to interfere in the 2020 United States presidential election for President Trump’s benefit. President Trump has seemingly directed and conspired with Giuliani in this months-long effort to illegally solicit a contribution from foreign nationals. The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits a foreign national from directly or indirectly making a contribution of “money or other thing of value” in connection with a U.S. election, and also prohibits a person from soliciting or accepting such a contribution.4 “Soliciting” a contribution from a foreign national is a violation of FECA even if the foreign national does not actually make a contri- bution. No quid pro quo is necessary for a violation to occur. Special Counsel Robert Mueller considered the application of this federal law ban on soliciting con- tributions from foreign nationals to the conduct of Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kush- ner, leading up to and including a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians who had promised opposition research on President Trump’s 2016 electoral opponent Hillary Clinton, detailed on page 23 of this report. Mueller concluded that: 1 Karoun Demirjian, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima and Carol D. Leonnig, “Trump ordered hold on military aid days before calling Ukrainian president, officials say,” WASHINGTON POST (Sept. 23, 2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-ordered- hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/2019/09/23/df93a6ca-de38-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_ story.html. 2 Alan Cullison, Rebecca Ballhaus and Dustin Volz, “Trump Repeatedly Pressed Ukraine President to Investigate Biden’s Son,” WALL STREET JOURNAL (Sept. 20, 2019) (updated Sept. 21, 2019) (emphasis added), https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-defends-conversa- tion-with-ukraine-leader-11568993176?shareToken=stde3f8759f32e415285ffed603e98f9b1. 3 Common Cause, “DOJ & FEC Complaints Filed Against President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Others for Illegal Solicitation of Contribu- tion from Ukrainian President,” (Sept. 23, 2019), https://www.commoncause.org/press-release/doj-fec-complaints-filed-against-presi- dent-trump-rudy-giuliani-and-others-for-illegal-solicitation-of-contribution-from-ukrainian-president/. 4 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a). Common Cause I [C]andidate-related opposition research given to a campaign for the purpose of influencing an election could constitute a contribution to which the foreign-source ban could apply. A campaign can be assisted not only by the provision of funds, but also by the provision of derogatory information about an opponent. Political campaigns frequently conduct and pay for opposition research. A foreign entity that engaged in such research and provided resulting information to a campaign could exert a greater effect on an election, and a greater tendency to ingratiate the donor to the candidate, than a gift of money or tangible things of value.5 On September 24th, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the launch of a formal impeachment in- quiry, citing compelling national security issues related to a whistleblower complaint alleging President Trump had solicited interference from a foreign country in the 2020 elections. Speaker Pelosi stated that the Ukraine scandal marked a “breach” of President Trump’s “Constitutional responsibilities.” Under immense political pressure, the White House on September 25th released a rough transcript of President Trump’s July 25th call with President Zelensky.6 And on September 26th, the House Intelligence Committee published the intelligence community whistleblower complaint.7 Both the rough transcript and the whistleblower complaint confirmed the allegations Common Cause made in its September 23rd complaint filed with the DOJ and FEC—President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies engaged in a months-long effort soliciting 2020 campaign support from the Ukraine gov- ernment. The whistleblower complaint also indicates that two State Department officials—U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland—met with President Zelensky on July 26 and advised him about how to navigate President Trump’s demands on Zelensky. In July 2019, Common Cause, on behalf of our 1.2 million members and supporters, called for an inquiry of impeachment. Simultaneously, Common Cause launched a website, https://impeachmentinquiry. org, to track Representatives’ positions on the impeachment inquiry and to facilitate pubic outreach to House Members to urge them to support an investigation. Thanks in no small part to the determi- nation and activism of Common Cause members, grassroots allies, and other outraged Americans, the impeachment inquiry is now underway. No American—and especially no president—is above the law. Common Cause urges that the impeach- ment inquiry include abuses of Presidential powers to obtain private political gain from Ukraine’s government, the campaign finance law violations alleged by Common Cause in its September 23rd DOJ and FEC complaint, as well as all of the issues detailed in this Common Cause report originally published in July 2019 and delivered to all of the Members of the House. The impeachment inquiry proceedings should proceed as expeditiously and as publicly as possible. 5 Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election,” Vol. 1, p. 187, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (March 2019), https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf. 6 White House, “Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine,” (July 25, 2019) (Declassified by order of the President Sept. 24, 2019), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf. 7 Whistleblower Complaint to U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Com- mittee on Intelligence (Aug. 12, 2019), https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/20190812_-_whistleblower_com- plaint_unclass.pdf. II The Case for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................. 3 Part I: Summary of Impeachment Process ....................................... 5 A. Constitutional Provisions....................................................5 B. Grounds for Impeachment ..................................................5 C. House and Senate Impeachment Procedures .................................6 1. House Procedures.......................................................6 2. Senate Procedures ......................................................8 Part II: Facts that Justify an “Inquiry of Impeachment” Resolution ................ 9 A. Emoluments................................................................9 B. Obstruction of Justice .....................................................10 C. Abuses of Power ..........................................................
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