JUST IN: New Tell-All Book Reportedly Reveals House Democrats Originally Drew Up 10 Articles of Impeachment Against Trump

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A new tell-all book reveals a number of eye-opening details about the impeachment of President Donald Trump, including the fact that House Democrats originally drew up 10 articles of impeachment last fall before paring down the list to just two.

In a New York Times story about the insider’s account of the impeachment, A Case for the American People, former House Judiciary consultant Norman Eisen writes that House Democrats initially wanted to prosecute Trump for a number of transgressions. Among them: obstruction of justice over the Mueller probe, campaign finance violations over the hush money paid to his adulterous affairs, and illegally diverting government funds to pay for his border wall, and violating the emoluments clause by mixing his personal and official business.

In fact, according to Eisen’s account, nine articles of impeachment related to past Trump misconduct had already been drafted by House committee staff as of late summer 2019, before the Ukraine whistleblower’s revelations became public.

“In the end, House Democratic leaders privately rejected prosecuting the president for those other actions,” the Times reports of the book, “calculating that such an expansive set of accusations would cost them votes even among Democrats by seeming to go too far and thus potentially sink the whole impeachment effort. The internal debate came down to whether to include a third article claiming obstruction of the special counsel investigation but Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed it.”

Eisen, a former ambassador to the Czech Republic during the Obama administration, has become a highly visible public watchdog of government corruption while at the Brookings Institution. During the House impeachment investigation, Judiciary chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) brought Eisen on board to help guide the process.

The author also targets for criticism former National Security Advisor John Bolton, over the White House official’s decision not to testify before the House or even agree to submitting a written affidavit.

“That could not only have blown open the door to Bolton testifying but other witnesses,” Eisen told the Times. “When he faults the House for not going broad, he’s faulting himself.”