Democrats release report detailing Trump’s alleged Ukraine scheme and discusses precedent for impeachment

(KYMA, KSWT, KECY, CNN)- House Intelligence Committee Democrats have released their report on Tuesday detailing how President Donald Trump sought political gain through his dealings with Ukraine.

The report lays out the historical precedent for impeaching a president, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The report from the House Intelligence Committee makes the Democrats' case for impeachment, weaving a narrative about Trump's handling of Ukraine, including with exhibits and phone logs, the sources said.

The report will also compare Trump's lack of cooperation with Congress with the cooperation in past administrations to argue that this President has engaged in unprecedented stonewalling.

The committee's report serves as the backbone of the Democrats' impeachment proceedings against the President. The committee is expected to vote to approve it on Tuesday evening to send it to the House Judiciary Committee, where it is expected to serve as the basis of articles of impeachment that would be drafted by that panel in the coming days.

Republicans on Monday released their report ahead of the Democrats, a document that fully defended the President's actions on Ukraine, and they accused Democrats of rushing to impeach the President without any evidence that Trump did anything wrong.

The Democratic report is based largely on the 17 witness interviews that were conducted over the past several months, including 12 at two weeks of public hearings, with testimony that detailed a lengthy effort spearheaded by the President's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to oust the US ambassador to Ukraine and then push Kiev to announce investigations into the President's political rivals.

The report's findings on both Ukraine and obstruction of Congress are expected to be included in the articles of impeachment.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday that the report "outlines in considerable detail a scheme that began actually well before the recall of Ambassador (Marie) Yovanovitch, and was designed to further two political objectives of the President, which is an investigation into Joe Biden and an investigation into this debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine that interfered in the last election, not Russia -- notwithstanding all of our intelligence agencies concluding it was Russia, notwithstanding the fact that it's actually Putin's narrative that Ukraine did it, not us

."Schiff added: "The President believed obviously this would help his reelection campaign, and he was willing to use the full force of his office to leverage Ukraine to do these sham investigations.

"The vote on the Intelligence Committee report signals a shift in the impeachment process from that committee to the Judiciary Committee.

The Judiciary panel, chaired by Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, is holding its first impeachment hearing on Wednesday with legal experts.