The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday announced its articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, only the third time in recent history that the committee has unveiled charges it believes merits a sitting president's removal from office.

The committee announced two articles of impeachment against Trump, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said at a press conference that Trump's conduct, in both soliciting foreign assistance in the 2020 election and in obstructing the House's impeachment inquiry, shows that the president "sees himself above the law."

"We must be clear: No one, not even the president, is above the law," he said.

Nadler said his committee will consider the articles of impeachment this week.

Read the articles of impeachment:

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Both of the charges leveled against the president stem from the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into whether the president improperly withheld military aid from Ukraine in exchange for probes into his potential rival in the 2020 presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden.

But House chairmen speaking Tuesday signaled that the articles will reach back to other alleged offenses by Trump as covered in special counsel Robert Mueller's report to establish a pattern of obstructive conduct.

For example, Nadler said that Trump had also welcomed foreign election interference by Russia in the 2016 election. And Mueller's report also details ways in which Trump may have obstructed justice in the course of that probe.

The text of the articles, released later Tuesday, proved that to be the case.

In the first article, for abuse of power, Democrats charged the president with having "abused the powers of the presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit."

"He has also betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections," the article continues, adding that Trump "will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law."

For the second article, alleging obstruction of Congress, Democrats found that Trump "sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry" by ordering executive branch officials and agencies to defy congressional subpoenas for testimony and documents.

While it did not reference them directly, much of that guidance came in the form of letters from White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who said the White House would not participate in the "unconstitutional" impeachment inquiry.

"In all of this, President Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States," the article reads.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Tuesday also rejected calls for the House to go to court to obtain more evidence needed for the inquiry. He noted that it took eight months for a district court to rule on whether former White House counsel Don McGahn could be compelled to testify before the House, and that the House didn't have time to wait.

Schiff said going back to court would effectively be saying, "why not just let him cheat one more time?"

Lawmakers had previously signaled they would also consider bribery, one of the only two grounds for impeachment explicitly named in the U.S. Constitution, among the articles of impeachment, but appear to have abandoned that effort.

They also abandoned an article on obstruction of justice, in relation to Mueller's probe.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to pass the articles along party lines.

The full House will then consider the articles and, if passed, they will then be referred to the GOP-controlled Senate for trial. Two-thirds of present senators will have to vote in favor of Trump's removal in order to trigger his departure from office.

Mueller declined to make a traditional prosecutorial charging decision, citing the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that says a sitting president cannot be indicted. But he said in public statements that there are other options within the Constitution for holding the president to account, and said it would be possible for a president to be indicted after leaving office.

The articles were unveiled one day after the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing where committee counsel presented evidence on why Trump should be impeached.

It also held a hearing last week with four constitutional law professors on the grounds for and history of impeachment. And Democratic staff on the Judiciary Committee released a report over the weekend on the constitutional grounds for impeachment.

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