As House Democrats prepare a report documenting their case for impeachment, House Republicans have put together a document of their own.
GOP staff have finalized a report for the top Republicans on the House intelligence, judiciary, and oversight committees arguing against removing Trump from office. Their work draws on the last several weeks of public hearings and private depositions.
The Daily Beast reviewed the document, which is more than 100 pages long. Among its arguments is a defense of efforts to scrutinize a company linked to Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter in a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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“There is also nothing wrong with asking serious questions about the presence of Vice President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on the board of directors of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian company, or about Ukraine’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election,” the report says.
Intelligence officials, meanwhile, briefed senators that the narrative that Ukraine meddled in 2016 is being pushed by Russian security services.
Putting together a counter-report is a classic strategy during contentious Washington legal and political fights. The president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, attempted to do the same during Robert Mueller’s investigation into 2016 election meddling.
Democrats on the committee also plan to release a report making the case for Trump’s impeachment. They are set to vote on the release of their report on Dec. 3.
The dueling documents come as the impeachment inquiry moves from the House Intelligence Committee to the House Judiciary Committee. Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) presided over two weeks of hearings with current and former U.S. government officials who described how the Trump administration pressured the government in Kyiv to announce investigations of the Biden-linked company and of an alleged Ukrainian influence campaign during 2016. At the same time the Trump administration was exerting that pressure, it also declined to schedule a White House meeting with the newly elected Ukrainian president and held up military assistance that had been promised to that country. Those issues are now at the center of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump.
