WASHINGTON (AP) – A California Democrat has filed an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump in a longshot bid to remove the president from office.

Rep. Brad Sherman filed the article Wednesday. In it, he accuses Trump of obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in part by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Sherman acknowledges that filing the article is “the first step on a very long road.”

He has one co-sponsor, fellow Democrat Al Green of Texas. Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from the effort, believing it energizes Trump’s base.

Sherman filed the article a day after the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., acknowledged that he met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. The lawyer promised damaging information from the Russian government about Democrat Hillary Clinton. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — A California Democrat has filed an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump in a longshot bid to remove the president from office.

Rep. Brad Sherman filed the article Wednesday. In it, he accuses Trump of obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in part by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Sherman acknowledges that filing the article is “the first step on a very long road.”

He has one co-sponsor, fellow Democrat Al Green of Texas. Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from the effort, believing it energizes Trump’s base.

Sherman filed the article a day after the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., acknowledged that he met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. The lawyer promised damaging information from the Russian government about Democrat Hillary Clinton.

© Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — A California Democrat filed an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump Wednesday in a longshot bid to remove the president from office.

Rep. Brad Sherman accuses Trump of obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in part by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Sherman acknowledges that filing the article is “the first step on a very long road.”

“But if the impulsive incompetency continues, then eventually — many, many months from now — Republicans will join the impeachment effort,” Sherman said in a statement.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sherman’s resolution was “utterly and completely ridiculous” and “a political game at its worst.”

Sherman’s effort has little chance of success in the Republican-led House. Sherman doesn’t even have the backing of many fellow Democrats.

Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from the efforts to impeach Trump, believing it serves only to energize the president’s supporters. Sherman’s resolution has one co-sponsor, fellow Democrat Al Green of Texas.

Sherman filed the article a day after the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., acknowledged that he met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. An intermediary for the lawyer promised damaging information from the Russian government about Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump Jr. said he received no information about Clinton at the meeting.

The president has questioned his own intelligence agencies and whether the Russians actually interfered in the election. However, federal authorities say they have definitive evidence that the Kremlin meddled in the U.S. presidential election.

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report. </s> A California Democrat filed an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump Wednesday in a longshot bid to remove the president from office.

Rep. Brad Sherman accuses Trump of obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in part by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Sherman acknowledges that filing the article is "the first step on a very long road."

"But if the impulsive incompetency continues, then eventually — many, many months from now — Republicans will join the impeachment effort ," Sherman said in a statement.

The effort has little chance of success in the Republican-led House. Sherman doesn't even have the backing of many fellow Democrats.

Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from the efforts to impeach Trump , believing it serves only to energize the president's supporters. Sherman's resolution has one co-sponsor, fellow Democrat Al Green of Texas.

Sherman filed the article a day after the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., acknowledged that he met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. The lawyer promised damaging information from the Russian government about Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump Jr. said he received no information about Clinton at the meeting.

The president has questioned his own intelligence agencies and whether the Russians actually interfered in the election. However, federal authorities say they have definitive evidence that the Kremlin meddled in the U.S. presidential election. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — A California Democrat filed an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump Wednesday in a longshot bid to remove the president from office.

Rep. Brad Sherman accuses Trump of obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in part by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Sherman acknowledges that filing the article is “the first step on a very long road.”

“But if the impulsive incompetency continues, then eventually — many, many months from now — Republicans will join the impeachment effort,” Sherman said in a statement.

The effort has little chance of success in the Republican-led House. Sherman doesn’t even have the backing of many fellow Democrats.

Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from the efforts to impeach Trump, believing it serves only to energize the president’s supporters. Sherman’s resolution has one co-sponsor, fellow Democrat Al Green of Texas.

Sherman filed the article a day after the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., acknowledged that he met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. The lawyer promised damaging information from the Russian government about Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump Jr. said he received no information about Clinton at the meeting.

The president has questioned his own intelligence agencies and whether the Russians actually interfered in the election. However, federal authorities say they have definitive evidence that the Kremlin meddled in the U.S. presidential election. </s> WASHINGTON — A California Democrat filed an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump Wednesday in a longshot bid to remove the president from office.

Rep. Brad Sherman accuses Trump of obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in part by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Sherman acknowledges that filing the article is “the first step on a very long road.”

“But if the impulsive incompetency continues, then eventually — many, many months from now — Republicans will join the impeachment effort,” Sherman said in a statement.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sherman’s resolution was “utterly and completely ridiculous” and “a political game at its worst.”

Sherman’s effort has little chance of success in the Republican-led House. Sherman doesn’t even have the backing of many fellow Democrats.

Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from the efforts to impeach Trump, believing it serves only to energize the president’s supporters. Sherman’s resolution has one co-sponsor, fellow Democrat Al Green of Texas.

Sherman filed the article a day after the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., acknowledged that he met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. An intermediary for the lawyer promised damaging information from the Russian government about Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump Jr. said he received no information about Clinton at the meeting.

The president has questioned his own intelligence agencies and whether the Russians actually interfered in the election. However, federal authorities say they have definitive evidence that the Kremlin meddled in the U.S. presidential election. </s> Attorney General William Barr appears to dare Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.

United States Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, posted online via DocumentCloud, in which Barr appeared to to be provoking Congress into commencing impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.

The letter came in response to Nadler’s demand that Barr provide Congress with a full, non-redacted version of the Mueller report — the 448-page document in which Russia investigation special counsel Robert Mueller details the findings of his 22-month investigation into links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, as well as possible obstruction of justice by Trump. The Mueller report, with the redactions imposed by Barr, has been posted online by The New York Times.

In the letter, Barr refuses Nadler’s demand for the unreacted Mueller report. But in the text of the letter, Barr chides Nadler for failing to “identify any available legal basis” for the Justice Department to release the portions of the report that were blacked out because they contained information from grand jury proceedings, which under the law are kept secret — except in certain cases outlined in an April decision by the District of Columbia federal Court of Appeals, posted online by Lawfare.

In that decision, McKeever vs. Barr, the court ruled that grand jury proceedings could be made public only if the were somehow related to a “judicial proceeding,” according to Lawfare.

While routine congressional oversight hearings likely do not count as a “judicial proceeding,” actual impeachment hearings would indeed fall under that label, according to a Politico analysis. In other words, initiating impeachment may be the only way to force Barr to hand over the full, unreacted Mueller report.

But Democratic leaders in Congress have been consistently attempting to avoid starting the impeachment process against Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in March flatly dismissed the idea of impeaching Trump, telling The Washington Post, “He’s just not worth it,” even though she also expressed her view that Trump in “unfit” to hold the nation’s highest office.

On Tuesday, the day after Barr sent his letter, Pelosi complained that Trump actually wanted Democrats to begin impeachment, because starting the proceedings that could, in theory, end with Trump’s removal from office would generate a political backlash that could help Trump and damage Democrats, according to CNN.

“Trump is goading us to impeach him,” Pelosi said on Tuesday. “That’s what he’s doing. Every single day, he’s just like taunting, taunting, taunting because he knows that it would be very divisive in the country, but he doesn’t really care. He just wants to solidify his base.” </s> An advocacy group asking members of Congress to support impeachment of President Trump has landed its first two recruits: Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

The group, which bills itself as By the People, announced Tuesday that the freshmen lawmakers — both of whom have been at the center of controversies during their short tenure on Capitol Hill — are the “brave first” members of Congress to sign its pledge.

There has been little doubt about Tlaib’s position on the issue since her first day on the job, when she famously proclaimed at a reception her desire to “impeach the motherf-----.”

After several days of national attention for her profane description of the president, Tlaib said she was sorry to have created a distraction but would never apologize for being “passionate and upset.”

[Lawmaker who profanely called for impeaching Trump says she’s sorry for the distraction — but not for her passion]

In a statement released by By the People on Tuesday, Tlaib referred to Trump as “Individual 1,” referencing his moniker in a federal indictment of his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for campaign finance violations, among other crimes.

“It’s my pleasure to support this pledge to impeach Donald Trump,” Tlaib said in the statement, which her office authenticated. “I can’t wait for us to show people, especially families in my district, that they are being put first — and that we’re going to hold everyone accountable to the law, including the President of the United States.”

A spokesman for Omar also confirmed her signing of the pledge.

Omar made national headlines this month following her suggestion on Twitter that Israel’s allies in U.S. politics were motivated by money rather than principle. She later apologized.

Democratic House leaders have cautioned against calling for Trump’s impeachment before special counsel Robert S. Mueller III submits a report on his investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Mueller is also examining whether Trump sought to obstruct the probe.

Alexandra Flores-Quilty, a spokeswoman for By the People, said the group plans to continue asking members of Congress “to show moral leadership” by the signing its pledge.

“We can let the Trump administration continue to corrupt our government and endanger our lives — or we can join together to remove Trump from office and make our government work for all of us,” Flores-Quilty said in a statement. “We the people have the power and the responsibility to impeach Trump. And now everyone who calls this country home can track where their members of Congress stand.” </s> President Donald Trump on Sunday slammed the first Republican lawmaker who called for his impeachment, saying Rep. Justin Amash is a 'loser' who is 'getting his name out there through controversy.'

'Never a fan of @justinamash , a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy,' Trump wrote on Twitter.

'If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump, he would see that it was nevertheless strong on NO COLLUSION and, ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION...Anyway, how do you Obstruct when there is no crime and, in fact, the crimes were committed by the other side? Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!,' he concluded.

Amash, a Republican congressman from Michigan, become the first Republican to publicly call for President Trump's impeachment on Saturday.

The congressman accused Trump of engaging in 'impeachable conduct' stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller's lengthy investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Amash's libertarian views often put him conflict with members of his own party.

Mueller found no criminal conspiracy between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, but left open the question of whether Trump acted in ways that were meant to obstruct the investigation.

Amash said he reached four conclusions after carefully reading the redacted version of Mueller's report, including that 'President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.'

'Contrary to Barr's portrayal, Mueller's report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment,' the congressman tweeted.

He said the report 'identifies multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice, and undoubtedly any person who is not the president of the United States would be indicted based on such evidence.'

The Justice Department, which Barr leads, operates under guidelines that discourage the indictment of a sitting president.

Trump and Republican lawmakers generally view the matter as 'case closed,' as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently declared on the floor of the Senate.

On the other hand, Democrats who control the House are locked in a bitter standoff with the White House as it ignores lawmakers' requests for the more complete version of Mueller's report, the underlying evidence and witness testimony.

Some Democrats wants the House to open impeachment hearings, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi resisted, saying impeachment must be bipartisan.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., a freshman who opened her term by profanely calling for Trump to be impeached, applauded Amash.

'You are putting country first, and that is to be commended,' Tlaib tweeted.

Tlaib is seeking support for a resolution she's circulating calling on the House to start impeachment proceedings.
Representative Brad Sherman files the first articles for the formal impeachment of Donald Trump in his position of President of the United States.