The situation on Wednesday: charges against Trump

Today is about the upcoming impeachment proceedings against the US President, another visit by the Defense Secretary to troops and a Secretary of Transportation who unexpectedly has files for the car toll collected from the Bundestag.

Impeachment without success

Tony Dejak / AP

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Issue 51/2019

Yes, he can

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It's a bit like reading the last few pages of an exciting book first: you know exactly how it will end. In the impeachment proceedings against incumbent US President Donald Trump , we can already say today how it will very likely end: The Senate will vote against impeachment because the Republicans are in the majority there.

It is just as certain that the House of Representatives will vote today to open the procedure because the Democrats are in the majority there. The debate of the deputies begins at 3 p.m. German time, it could last for many hours, after which a vote will be taken.

Everything just a show?

In a way yes, and yet it is good that this process takes place because it creates transparency for voters . Nobody will be able to say in the upcoming presidential election next year that he knew nothing. At the same time, Trump may emerge stronger than ever from the failure to remove him from office. This strategic consideration must not play a role in today's decision, it must be about the matter.

The Democrats accuse Trump of urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj to investigate Joe Biden . Biden, once a vice under Barack Obama, is a favorite among democratic candidates for the 2020 election.

The Democrats see it as proven that Trump has conditionaled on the announcement of such an investigation that it will meet with Selensky in the White House and release $ 391 million in military aid to Ukraine. The Democrats also accuse the US President of interfering with the House investigation into the matter.

We know the beginning of this story and its end, we don't know what lies in between. Presumably it will be scenes of wrestling, they have already started. Republican Congress leader Mitch McConnell has just refused to invite four White House officials to the Senate as witnesses. The Democrats are outraged and speak of a mistake. At the same time, Trump sent a six-page tantrum to the House Democratic spokeswoman, Nancy Pelosi , accusing her of violating the constitution.

It sounds like an exciting book, all in all.

• Immune to scandals: Donald Trump, the invulnerable

Troop visit to the Mediterranean

Britta Pedersen / DPA

The Defense Minister is traveling again, visiting German soldiers in Cyprus. The Bundeswehr is part of the Unifil mission, which is responsible for securing Lebanon's maritime borders and is designed to curb the smuggling of weapons. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer will probably bring Christmas presents.

The demand that Germany should engage more militarily is fashionable. There are also good reasons for this: The withdrawal of the USA as a world police force, the NATO crisis, the tense relationship with Russia and China, the many conflicts in the world, the development of which is unpredictable.

On the other hand, Germany is already involved with 3,391 soldiers abroad , but who knows? I suspect that the majority of Germans have no idea that we have soldiers stationed in Cyprus who are helping Lebanon. I suspect the majority don't know that Germany is involved in 13 military missions, from Afghanistan to Kosovo to Western Sahara.

Knowing nothing is a problem that can be solved in a democracy. Another question is how meaningful each of these missions is. There is, for example, the mission in Mali, where 873 German soldiers are supposed to help bring about reconciliation between the government and rebel groups. This has not succeeded in the past six years, so why are the soldiers still there?

• CDU boss Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer: your bad first year

Scheuer's recall campaign

Michael Kappeler / DPA

News from the toll trilogy: The employees in the secretariat of the Transport Committee in the Bundestag recently received an unexpected visit. Officials from the home of Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer came over and wanted to take back the files on the car toll that they had made available to the committee.

Scheuer is under pressure as he faces claims for damages from the former operator of the car toll of half a billion euros. The reason was rash and rash decisions by the CSU minister and his officials. That is why a committee of inquiry is now pending, which in turn could be the reason for the controversial file retrieval campaign about which my two colleagues Sven Becker and Gerald Traufetter report this morning.

According to their information, the ministry forwarded the files from the transport committee to the secretariat of the investigation committee. However, the level of confidentiality of many documents had suddenly been changed - from the lowest level "VS - for service use only" to "VS Confidential". These files are now in the secret service of the Bundestag and may only be read by MPs and security-checked employees. This makes the work of the committee of inquiry difficult right from the start.

If the cover-up suspicion turns out to be true, Scheuer would have broken his promise of transparency . As a minister, he is no longer sustainable anyway, only the Chancellor and the CSU seem to disagree so far.

• Transport Minister Scheuer and his former State Secretary: The tricky Mr Toll

Winner of the day ...

Hannibal / picture alliance / dpa

... are the 32 members of the mediation committee of the Federal Council and the Bundestag. You are likely to have a short session today. The reformed climate package, which now provides an entry price of 25 euros per CO2 ton, should be accepted without any arguments. Even in the Union faction, there were few protests in the debate yesterday. In the end, 18 of the 246 CDU and CSU MPs voted against the project.

The compact news overview in the morning: up-to-date and strong in opinion. Every morning (weekdays) at 6 a.m. Order directly here:

The latest news from the night

• Trump sends Nancy Pelosi a six-page tantrum : The official impeachment proceedings against the US President are approaching - now he wrote to the speaker of the House of Representatives and accused her of violating the constitution
• Strikes in France are also expected to continue over Christmas : on Tuesday alone, hundreds of thousands of people in the country protested the planned pension reform. Now the unions are threatening not to take a break over the holidays if necessary
• Fallon Sherrock is the first woman to win a game at the Darts World Cup : This is a historic success, because a player had never made it into the second round of the PDC World Darts Championship - until Englishman Sherrock played compatriot Ted Evetts Life played

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

• Climate change debate in Germany: was the nuclear phase-out a mistake?
• Police psychologist analyzes Prince Andrew's Epstein interview: "His body betrays him"
• The Amazon boss, his ex and US President Trump: the Bezos affair
• A commissioner and his dramatic case: where should a murderer hide?

I wish you an exciting Wednesday!

warmly
Yours Martin Knobbe