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Vox Sentences: The president’s offenses

Articles of impeachment are in the works; North Korea looks like it’s planning to restart missile testing.

by Hannah Brown

Dec 7, 2019, 1:00 AM UTC

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Impeachment rolls onward

Next week, the House Judiciary Committee is expected to draft impeachment charges against President Trump. [USA Today / George Petras]
That means we’re on track for an impeachment vote before Christmas, although there’s no guarantee that will happen. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she gave the House Intelligence Committee the go-ahead for articles of impeachment. [New York Times / Nicholas Fandos]
So what else happened this week? On Wednesday, four lawyers testified before the Judiciary Committee hearing about the constitutional issues at stake. [New Yorker / Amy Davidson Sorkin]
But we’re also still getting new information relevant to the inquiry itself, including a log of Rudy Giuliani’s phone calls. [Washington Post / Paul Sonne, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima, and Greg Miller]
Meanwhile, the GOP has settled on its next counternarrative: arguing that the process is partisan and detrimental to national unity. It’s going to ruin Christmas! [Politico / Darren Samuelsohn and Natasha Bertrand]
A former Republican member of the House asserted that his most of ex-colleagues are unlikely to break with the current talking points. “They’re not looking to make a name through this, they’re looking to survive this,” said David Jolly. [Vox / Sean Illing]
With a House vote on articles of impeachment looming, Trump is turning his focus to the trial that will (most likely) end with his exoneration in the Senate. [LA Times / Chris Megerian]

Images show activity at North Korea missile facility

Satellite images of a North Korean missile testing facility call into question President Trump’s claims that the site was dismantled. [CNN / Zachary Cohen]
A large shipping container could be seen on the engine test stand in the images of Sohae Satellite Launching Station, indicating that engine testing for intercontinental ballistic missiles and satellite launchers might be poised to resume. [International Business Times / Rohit R Nair]
This discovery follows North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Ri Thae Song’s ominous statement that the US could expect a “Christmas gift” from Pyongyang if Trump didn’t change the American position of US-North Korea negotiations. [BBC]
But how did we get the satellite images in the first place? The Atlantic’s Amy Zegart delves into the not-so-secret world of nuclear threat tracking. [Atlantic / Amy Zegart]

Miscellaneous

Without insurance, pregnancy is exponentially more dangerous. Several Texas women can attest to it. [Vox and ProPublica / Julia Belluz and Nina Martin]
As measles deaths continue, Samoan officials have arrested an anti-vaccination activist for “incitement against a government order” charges. [NPR / Merrit Kennedy]
The hardest part of parenting might be talking about the difficulty of it. [Quartz / Nat Kendall-Taylor]
Video evidence disputes the police account of how a teenager died in a Border Patrol facility. [ProPublica / Robert Moore, Susan Schmidt, and Maryam Jameel]
More than 100 wildfires are burning across Australia. About half of them are considered to be out of control. [The Guardian / Ben Doherty and Helen Davidson]