I watched some of the Impeachment Hearings yesterday, where members of the House Judiciary Committee questioned the Republican-chosen and Democratic-chosen lawyers about the case for impeachment and whether the House impeachment inquiry had “proven” there is enough evidence to vote for impeachment. It was confusing, but clearly, I’m not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar. It seemed to me that even the people the GOP has hand-picked to obfuscate for Donald Trump have inadvertently been making the case of impeachment too. But again, what do I know. In any case, the House is moving forward and two articles of impeachment have been introduced:

Democrats in the House of Representatives announced they will introduce two articles of impeachment Tuesday morning, making clear they intend to charge President Donald Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Both articles are based on the Ukraine scandal, meaning the party decided not to introduce any articles of impeachment solely based on the Mueller report, as some had pushed for.

Articles of impeachment are essentially the “charges” against the president that the House of Representatives is considering approving. The final House votes on impeachment will be a yes or no vote on each article. If even one is approved, Trump is impeached — and the Senate will then hold a trial to determine whether to remove him from office.

Democrats have not yet released the full articles, but they explained that Article 1, abuse of power, will address Trump’s general underlying conduct in the Ukraine scandal. It alleges that Trump abused his power by trying to pressure Ukraine’s government into announcing an investigation into the Bidens by withholding both a White House meeting and military aid.

Article 2, obstruction of Congress, will be about how Trump responded to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine scandal. It will allege that Trump obstructed the probe by urging witnesses not to cooperate and government agencies not to comply with subpoenas.

The next step is that the House Judiciary Committee will vote on whether to approve each article later this week — which is mainly seen as a formality, as the committee as a large majority of liberal-leaning Democrats which will clearly approve both articles. After that, the action will proceed to the House floor, with a final vote on both articles of impeachment expected next week. At least one article, and probably both, are highly likely to be approved by the House of Representatives’ Democratic majority. And that would make Trump only the third president in US history to be impeached.

[From Vox]

From what I understand – Vox’s explainer is very good – Article One is about the crime and Article Two is about the cover-up. Meaning, Article One is about the crime of Donald Trump withholding aid to Ukraine until he got a verbal agreement from President Zelensky to announce an investigation into the Bidens, for the purposes of “dirtying up” Trump’s political opponent. Article Two is about what Trump did after people began asking questions about the Ukraine call, the cover-up and the obstruction. As I’ve said before… this is a good start, but I really wish this wasn’t moving so fast.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.