We’re getting down to the wire on impeachment this week, with the final Judiciary Committee hearings and drawing up the articles of impeachment. And by the time I publish this, all the suspense will be over, I’m sure.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending December 15…

General Happenings:

1. Mike Pence refuses to release information to Adam Schiff about Pence’s call with Zelensky.
2. A group of moderate Democrats brings up the idea of censure instead of impeachment. They’re mostly in risky districts where their re-election chances could hinge on this vote.
3. In the middle of the impeachment hearings, a handful of House Democrats attend the White House Congressional Ball.
4. Representative Jeff Van Drew says he’ll vote against impeachment and then switch parties to the Republican party.

• • Van Drew has a solid Democratic voting record and has only voted with Trump about 9% of the time.
  • He represents a Republican-leaning district where Trump won in 2016.
  • He spoke about this with Trump.
  • Last month, he swore he would remain a Democrat.
  • Six of his aides resign at the news, including his legislative director, communications director, and scheduler.

5. Zelensky and Putin meet with other world leaders in Paris to discuss a peace agreement. There was no breakthrough in the meeting, which was sponsored by France and Germany.

• • They agree to a prisoner exchange and a cease-fire.
  • They don’t agree on a timeline for local elections nor on control of the borders.

6. A coalition of veterans and national security groups call on Congress to “put country over politics” and support impeachment.
7. In case you’re wondering whether impeachment will get a fair hearing in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham put that to rest this week.

• • In a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell says:

• • • “Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.”
    • “We’ll be working through this process … in total coordination with the White House counsel’s office and the people representing the president in the well of the Senate.”
    • “I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers.”
    • “I’m going to coordinate with the president’s lawyers.”
    • “There’s no chance the president will be removed from office.”
  • Lindsey Graham says:

• • • “I think what’s best for the country is to get this thing over with. I have clearly made up my mind. I’m not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain for the accusations in the process. So I don’t need any witnesses. … I am ready to vote on the underlying articles. I don’t really need to hear a lot of witnesses.”
    • “I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here.”

8. Representative Val Demings calls on Mitch McConnell to recuse himself because a member of a jury cannot also serve as the defense attorney.
9. McConnell and Graham want the trial over quickly and quietly, but Trump wants a spectacle.
10. Chuck Schumer sends a letter to Mitch McConnell listing the witnesses they want to call for an impeachment trial in the Senate. His witness list includes administration officials that Trump previously prevented from testifying. McConnell rejects the request.
11. Because of the delay in disbursing the military aid, Trump and Congress had to pass an extension; otherwise, the deadline would’ve passed and the funds would no longer be available. Around $20 million still hasn’t been disbursed.
12. The Office of Management and Budget is now claiming that they withheld aid to study whether the spending complied with U.S. policy. They extended the hold on aid eight times in August and September.
13. Trump goes on a Twitter tear mostly over impeachment, putting out 80 tweets in three hours, and then adding 20 more tweets for good measure. This is after he tweeted 105 times the previous Sunday.
14. As the result of a FOIA request, the Trump administration releases heavily redacted communications from the Department of Defense and Office of Management and Budget that discuss the withholding of aid to Ukraine. Unfortunately, they’re so redacted there’s not much info to glean. The Center for Public Integrity is asking the judge to enforce greater transparency.

House Judiciary Committee Hearing:

The House Judiciary Committee holds a second hearing, this time to let the legal counsel from the majority and minority in the House Intelligence Committee present their cases.

1. Barry Berke, counsel for the majority on the House Judiciary Committee, lays out how we got to impeachment:

• • The president abused his power by pressuring Zelensky to investigate a political opponent.
  • He then abused his power by ramping up that pressure and conditioning a wanted White House meeting and needed military aid.
  • He put his own political prospects over our national security.
  • This is supported by documents, actions, and sworn testimony, and is uncontradicted by contemporaneous records.
  • These are the uncontested facts he’s talking about:

    • Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pushed Ukraine to open an investigation into Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden.
    • Trump told his Ukraine advisors to talk to Rudy.
    • Trump’s Ukraine advisors told Ukraine officials there would be no White House meeting unless they announced investigations into Biden.
    • Trump then ordered that the military aid approved by Congress be withheld against the wishes of every government agency involved.
    • On the July 25th call, Trump told Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and to investigate Ukraine interference in the 2016 election. Both would help Trump politically.
    • Trump released the military aid after two things: 1) Ukraine passed anti-corruption legislation, and 2) he learned about the whistleblower’s complaint.

2. Republicans’ counsel counters with these points:

• • Democrats can’t get over that Trump is the president and they just disagree with Trump’s policies. They’re just afraid he’ll be re-elected.
  • Trump’s conduct doesn’t meet the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.
  • 63 million people voted for Trump, so we can’t impeach him.
  • Democrats have just been searching for a reason to impeach, and they’ve introduced several articles of impeachment. (They neglect to say that Democrats also voted against those articles.)
  • Democrats requested and subpoenaed Trump’s financial information.
  • The process has been too rushed.
  • Democrats should’ve allowed White House staff to testify with White House counsel present.
  • He talks about how the White House cooperated once with one investigation earlier this year as proof that they’re cooperative. (The White House has instructed zero cooperation with the impeachment inquiry.)
  • Zelensky has said there was no pressure, as have other Ukrainian officials. And they didn’t know that aid was withheld until it was published in the media.
  • Trump is skeptical of Ukraine and always has been. He also doesn’t think Europe is doing enough to help Ukraine.
  • The voters can decide in the next elections. (This is the most disingenuous argument to me. Voters don’t judge the president on legalities; that’s the job of Congress. It’s why we have impeachment in the constitution.)

3. I don’t see anything here that supports the Republican case except Ukraine officials not knowing about the aid being suspended. But that is contradicted by multiple witnesses who were fielding earlier calls from those officials. Even Zelensky now says that withholding aid was wrong.
4. This is how seriously the Republicans’ lawyer is taking this:

• • He says the chief allegation that the impeachment query has been trying to assess over the past several days is this — whether Trump abused the power of his office through quid pro quo, extortion, or “whatever”. Whatever. He brushed it off as “whatever.”

5. Republicans put up posters in the hearing that attack and mock Democrats. The posters are strategically placed to be caught on television cameras.

Article of Impeachment:

After a marathon debate and an overnight postponement, the House Judiciary Committee approves two articles of impeachment in a 100% party-line vote. They do not include any obstructive acts related to the Mueller investigation. Democrats felt that they were too complicated to include at this time. Here‘s the substance of the articles (read the full text here):

Abuse of Power:

1. Trump solicited a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 elections to his advantage and compromised our national security in so doing.
2. He pressured Ukraine to do this by conditioning official U.S. government acts of significant value to Ukraine on investigations into Joe Biden and a discredited Russian theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections.
3. Trump conditioned military aid and a head of state meeting on getting those investigations.
4. Even though the aid was eventually released, Trump has continued to pressure Ukraine for the investigations.
5. He will continue this pattern of corruption.

Obstruction of Congress:

1. Trump directed ultimate defiance of House subpoenas, a right accorded to the House by their “sole Power of Impeachment.”
2. He ordered the White House to defy a lawful subpoena of documents.
3. He ordered the State Department, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense to also defy their subpoenas.
4. He ordered John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl not to comply with the inquiry.
5. The purpose of the obstruction was to cover up his own repeated misconduct.

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani… And Now Nunes:

1. Prosecutors ask a judge to revoke Lev Parnas’ bail. They discovered that Parnas had received an unreported $1 million payment from a Ukrainian oligarch suspected to be Dmytro Firtash.
2. As Giuliani taxis down the runway on his return from Kyiv (where he met with former Ukraine prosecutors in an effort to clear Trump of the impeachment charges), Trump calls him to ask “What did you get?”

• • Giuliani replies, “More than you can imagine.”
  • Trump says Giuliani wants to testify in the impeachment inquiry about what he’s learned. Oh lordy, I hope they let him.

3. Bill Barr tells Trump that Giuliani is a liability and a problem for the administration.