Schiff, Democrats release impeachment probe report accusing Trump of misconduct

On Tuesday afternoon, the House Intelligence Committee released its report on the impeachment probe that's dominated much of the discussion in Washington for months now.

The 300-page document — which was publicly released on the same day the Intelligence Committee was scheduled to vote on it and a day before the House Judiciary Committee's first public impeachment hearing — accuses the president of engaging in misconduct with regard to Ukrainian foreign aid, that he obstructed the subsequent House investigation of his conduct, and that he "publicly attacked and intimidated witnesses" who came forward to testify in the probe.

In a statement accompanying the release of the report — which was prepared by Democratic congressional staff — Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), along with Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Elliot Engel (D-N.Y.), said that the "evidence is clear" that the president "used the power of his office to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations" that were "designed to benefit his 2020 presidential reelection campaign," that he "conditioned official acts on the public announcement of these investigations," and that he "engaged in categorical and unprecedented obstruction in order to cover-up his misconduct."

The trio's statement went on to say, "It will be up to the Congress to determine whether these acts rise to the level of an impeachable offense, whether the President shall be held to account, and whether we as a nation are committed to the rule of law."

At a Tuesday press conference about the report, Schiff declined to say whether or not he supports impeaching the president, but did say that he is "gravely concerned that if we merely accept this, that we invite not only further corruption of our elections by this president, but we also invite it of the next president."

Much of the report deals with information already publicly known from the course of the investigation, with the notable exception of records of April phone calls between House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani, as well as the Guiliani's associate, Lev Parnas, who has since been indicted on campaign finance charges. Parnas' attorney, Joseph Bondy, responded to the released records on Twitter saying that Nunes should have recused himself from the investigation.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham responded to the release of the report with a statement, saying, "Chairman Schiff and the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump. This report reflects nothing more than their frustrations. Chairman Schiff's report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing."

The Schiff report was a released the day after Republicans put out their own report on the evidence of the impeachment probe, which contends that the facts presented don't establish any impeachable behavior on the president's part.