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(CNN) - Democrats in the House of Representatives plan to move forward, on Tuesday, with at least two charges of political trial against US President Donald Trump, one on abuse of power and one on obstruction of Congress, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Democrats plan to reveal the charges of political trial Tuesday morning and will begin discussing them in the Judicial Commission on Thursday, sources said. Late on Monday night, House Democrats announced a press conference for this Tuesday, 9 am local time, at the Capitol to share the next steps in the political trial investigation.
In a private meeting, Monday night, with House President Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team, Democrats discussed also including another charge of obstruction of justice detailing the accusations in the Mueller report. While there are advocates for this approach, a source familiar with the discussions said it seemed that obtaining the necessary votes to approve the charge of obstruction of justice outside the House could be difficult, as moderate Democrats have resisted going further. beyond the limited scope of the Ukraine issue.
But even if the Democrats don't include a separate charge on the obstruction of justice, they are expected to include references to Mueller's accusations in the other charges to show that Trump's misconduct was part of a broader pattern, according to sources. .
The charges have not been finalized, sources said, and discussions continued Monday night before Tuesday's announcement.
Upon leaving Pelosi's office on Monday night, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Eliot Engel, of New York, told reporters that there would be an announcement Tuesday morning to present political trial charges. The announcement will be made by the Democratic presidents of the main committees: the president of the Judicial Commission, Jerry Nadler, of New York; the president of the Intelligence Commission, Adam Schiff, of California; the president of the Financial Services Commission, Maxine Waters, of California, and the president of the Supervisory Committee, Carolyn Maloney, of New York.
"This is not a happy day," said Engel, "but I think we are doing what we have to do."
The Washington Post was the first to report the two impending charges of political trial.
Tuesday's announcement will be made a day after Nadler accused Trump of putting himself "first than the country" in a chaotic audience that started a quick two-week run for Democrats likely to end up in the third challenge of a President in the history of the United States.
The hearing was an opportunity for Democrats to present their case against the president for the last time before advancing on charges of political trial. Democrats accuse Trump of abusing his position by pressing Ukraine to investigate his political rival while retaining $ 400 million in US security assistance and conditioning a bilateral meeting at the White House. And they say he obstructed Congress by refusing to provide documents to the commission and telling officials not to testify in the political trial investigation.
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What is still being debated is the accusation of obstruction of justice detailed in the Mueller report, which Democrats said Monday indicated a greater pattern of Trump's misconduct.
The hearing for the lawyers of the Democratic and Republican banks to present arguments in favor and against the political trial to Trump saw the bitter partisan division over the proceedings of challenge, and the Republican legislators openly protested the handling of Nadler's hearing and The members of the Commission even met during the interrogation.
Republicans broke out while the Democratic majority attorney in the Judicial Commission, Barry Berke, pressured Republican lawyer Steve Castor on the Republican report and accused Republicans of citing a witness inaccurately.
"He's bothering the witness," said Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, trying to raise an objection to Berke's questions. When Nadler ruled that he was not raising a valid objection, Sensenbrenner said: "The president is not in order."
READ : The Republican report feeds Trump's fantasy about Ukraine
The exchange was one of the many republican objections that occurred on Monday during a long hearing where even the recess decision provoked multiple votes. When the interrogations of the lawyers began, which created a strange dynamic in which one member of the Commission was interrogating another, the republican protests intensified along with the volume of Nadler's hammer hitting to stop the interruptions.
"Hit with more force, that just doesn't make it right," said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the senior Republican in the House Judicial Commission, against Nadler.
The Democrats took advantage of Monday’s hearing opportunity to weave witness testimony to illustrate their narration that the president abused his post.
"If it is presented to the country in a way that threatens our democracy, then our oath, our promise to the American people, forces us to defend the nation," said Nadler, who is a Democrat.
Nadler refused to discuss the charges against Trump, Monday night, when leaving the offices of the Judicial Commission, but said Republicans only tried to attack the process, not the facts against the president.
"Republicans just tried to defend the president's behavior," Nadler said. “All they talked about from their point of view was the improper process, about (former Vice President Joe) Biden and Burisma and Ukraine. But nothing about defending the president's behavior, and that is probably because the evidence is overwhelming and the behavior indefensible. ”
Republicans also pointed to witness testimony to argue that Democrats did not have a case, accusing them of rushing to accuse Trump to defeat him in the 2020 elections.
"However, this may come to be known as a focus group political trial," Collins said. “Because we don't have a crime, we have nothing we can identify and nobody really understands what the majority is trying to do, except to interfere and basically make sure they believe the president can't win next year if he is dismissed. "
READ : Democrats publish report detailing Trump's alleged scheme on Ukraine and discusses a precedent for the political trial
Objections to the hearing began as soon as Nadler began his opening statement, when a protester at the hearing shouted to the president of the Judicial Commission before being removed by the United States Capitol Police. The Republicans in the Commission then took their own objections, demanded a hearing for the witnesses of those who want to hear and accused Nadler of "overwhelming" when he ignored his protests.
The Republicans criticized Schiff, who led the political trial investigation in the Intelligence Commission, for not testifying before the Judicial Commission, and instead Daniel Goldman appeared to discuss the report of that Commission.
"We want Schiff in that chair, not you," shouted Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican.
Collins went after Goldman during his interrogation about the Commission's subpoenas that revealed the phone calls of the representative Devin Nunes, the main Republican in the Intelligence Commission, and the journalist John Solomon, whose opinion columns in The Hill attacked the former US ambassador Marie Yovanovitch Goldman said the Commission did not cite either Nunes or Solomon, but that did not stop criticism from Republican lawmakers.
"Someone on the road did not suddenly have an epiphany ... that these numbers could match," Collins said. “Who ordered it? Was it you or President Schiff? And why was it decided, except for defamation purposes, to be included in Schiff's report?
Monday's hearing is likely to be only the opening act of a week of important activity of the Judicial Commission on the political trial, since Democrats are expected to present charges of political trial that will be debated and voted on in the Commission at the end. This week.
Nadler declined to say what the next steps of the commission would be, saying that "I was not prepared to say anything more about the Commission's calendar beyond today's hearing." But he concluded the hearing by stating that Trump's conduct was "clearly impeccable."
"This Commission will proceed accordingly," he said.
The case of the benches for and against Trump
Diametrically opposed opinions between Democrats and Republicans about the political trial, where they have not reached an agreement on the basic facts and what they mean, underline the intense partisan struggle that continues to intensify as the political trial vote approaches.
Both parties found many testimonies to support their case throughout the dozens of testimony of witnesses that occurred in the House Intelligence Commission.
In presenting the case of the Democrats before asking questions, Berke described a pattern of Trump's behavior that goes back to his call to Russia to find the emails of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 elections.
MIRA : The relevance of Mueller's appearance before commissions of the US House of Representatives
“Given what happened with the Justice Department investigation, given what is happening here, if in fact President Trump can get away with it again, our imagination is the only limit to what President Trump can do next or what a future president can do to try to abuse his power to serve his own personal interests over the interests of the nation, ”said Berke.
Goldman reviewed the Commission's investigation during his presentation, noting the testimony that Democrats say shows that Trump led the effort for Ukraine to investigate its political rival while retaining US security assistance and conditioning a White House meeting. Goldman said senior officials were "informed" about the effort, as US Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified, and argued that Trump's "determination to request foreign interference in our elections continues today."
"It didn't end with Russia's support for Trump in 2016, which President Trump invited asking for his opponent to be hacked by Russia," he said. "And it did not end when his Ukrainian plan was exposed in September of this year."
Castor presented his own employer, one who says he shows that Democrats were working to dismiss the president from the day he took office. Castor pointed out all Democratic investigations into the president through the House committees, from the testimony of Michael Cohen to the lawsuit to obtain the president's tax returns, to argue that the political trial investigation has been lengthy.
"The record in the political trial investigation of the Democrats does not show that President Trump has abused the power of his office or obstructed Congress," Castor said. "Accusing a president for which 63 million people voted for more than eight lines in a transcript of a call is nonsense."
Castor argued that the Democrats "did not provide direct evidence that President Trump held a security meeting or assistance to pressure President Zelensky to investigate former Vice President (Joe) Biden," noting the testimony of special envoy Kurt Volker to argue that the witnesses did not testify a quid pro quo.
"The witnesses who testified in the investigation have denied knowledge of the criminal activity or even a contested crime," he said. "On the key issue of the president's state of mind, there is no clear evidence that President Trump has acted with malicious intentions."
Discuss what to do with Mueller
While the president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the high-ranking Democrats have made it clear that they are proceeding to the political trial, Democrats in the House of Representatives are still debating whether the articles should focus narrowly on Ukraine or expand the scope of the articles to include the accusations detailed by Mueller.
While the Democrats of the Judicial Commission say that Trump's conduct documented by Mueller should not be excused, Schiff on Sunday seemed to indicate that he did not support including Mueller's accusations in political trial articles.
"In an accusation decision, and a political trial in the House is essentially an accusation decision, accusing those who have stronger and overwhelming evidence, and not trying to collect everything even though it could accuse other things," Schiff said. Sunday on "Face the Nation" by CBS.
"There is overwhelming evidence that the president tried to force Ukraine to interfere in our elections, essentially sought to deceive our next elections by having a foreign government intervene," Schiff added. "That is a very serious matter and endangers our national security, it is a serious abuse of his office and the president also tried to hinder the investigation of that crime, and I think that is the problem of this crime here."
The White House said Friday that it would not participate in the proceedings of the Judicial Commission, and said in a letter that the political trial investigation was "completely unfounded" and a "reckless abuse of power."
READ : Michelle Obama describes Trump's political trial procedures as "surreal"
Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat in the Judicial Commission, told reporters Sunday that the commission was prepared to hold another hearing this week if the White House planned to present its own case, but because Trump does not participate, the commission Do not expect another audience.
"We need to listen, we have to go through the audience (Monday) and see what is said there," Jayapal said. "We want to hear the case of the minority, the minority council, we want to make sure we have all that information in front of us, and then, once this is done, we will have a good idea of what follows."
CNN's Aishvarya Kavi contributed to this report.
Political judgment