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This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, December 17th, 2019. I'm Caleb Brown.

The US House has passed two articles of impeachment against President Trump.

Cato's Jean Healy, author of the newato Paper Indispensable Remedy, walks us through the articles

why they were written the way they were, as a House vote looms this week.

Yeah, there have been a lot of talk in the last few weeks about cluttering up the articles

with charges ranging from a monuments clause violations to obstruction of justice in the Mueller Special Council probe and I guess in the end the

Democratic leadership decided that none of that really sparked joy and they kept it minimalist

so what we've got is two articles of impeachment that focus on

Ukraine Gate and the president's response to the impeachment inquiry that Ukraine Gate launched. So yeah I assume there would be three just based on history that

there would be three.

Well, there were only two in the most recent and the Clinton impeachment.

But what you've got is the first article is about the alleged

shakedown attempt to the Ukrainian government the withholding a state visit

and military aid in lesson until the Ukrainians

...