WASHINGTON • Democrats signaled their impeachment case could include multiple alleged offenses in President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, including bribery, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and justice during a Judiciary Committee hearing that marked the next phase in the impeachment inquiry.

The breadth of potential articles of impeachment was apparent through questioning by the Democrats’ counsel, Norm Eisen, who queried the Democrats’ three witnesses over whether various actions qualified as impeachable offenses. Notably, the Democrats asked about episodes documented in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on potential Trump obstruction of justice, a sign that the impeachment effort might go beyond Ukraine to the Russia investigation that consumed much of the first two years of the president’s term.

“Have you formed an opinion as to whether President Trump committed the impeachable offense of obstruction of justice?” Eisen asked one of the constitutional scholars.

“The Mueller report cites a number of facts that indicate the president of the United States obstructed justice,” replied Michael Gerhardt, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Republicans defended Trump on several fronts, on substance of his contacts with Ukraine and on the impeachment process. “We have just a deep-seated hatred of a man who came to the White House and did what he said he was going to do,” said Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the panel.

The hearing was designed to establish the standards for impeachment with the goal of determining whether Trump’s actions meet the threshold for removing a president from office. To help frame the debate, the hearing featured four law professors — three called by Democrats and one by Republicans — to answer questions from lawmakers.

After a full House vote on whether to impeach Trump, the matter would move to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to convict him and remove him from office. On Wednesday, the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., indicated that the chamber’s schedule for January would be left open to leave room for a trial to determine whether to convict.

The Constitution allows for impeachment on the grounds of treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors, a standard that includes criminal activity but also covers an entirely separate category of malfeasance involving offenses against the public.

Trump and other administration officials pressured Kyiv to announce probes into Democrat Joe Biden and into a theory that Ukraine’s government interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections, even though a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of any systemic effort by Ukraine to interfere. A House Intelligence Committee report released Tuesday, based on testimony from a number of witnesses over the past several weeks, made the case that Trump made the Ukrainian president’s request for a White House visit and military aid contingent on that country’s announcement of those probes. That amounted to Trump putting “his own personal and political interests above the national interests” and justified his removal, the report said.

The House Intelligence Committee is expected to testify about its report before the Judiciary Committee next week.

Trump has denied wrongdoing or improper exchange of favors related to investigations he pressed Ukraine to announce.

Separately, Mueller’s report on Russian election interference, released this spring, documented at least five and as many as 10 episodes of Trump potentially trying to obstruct the probe. Those included the president asking his then-White House counsel, Don McGahn, in 2017 to call a top Justice Department official to have Mueller removed, a request that McGahn felt was inappropriate. They also include asking his then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who held no government post, to deliver a message to Attorney General Jeff Sessions telling him to limit the investigation to focus only on future elections and to give a speech defending Trump.

The hearing played out against a backdrop of jitters within the Democratic caucus over whether their impeachment inquiry was proceeding too quickly.

At a closed-door meeting earlier Wednesday, one key question from Democrats was why leaders weren’t waiting for testimony from others, such as John Bolton, according to a person familiar with the meeting. The former national security adviser was involved in meetings and conversations on Ukraine policy that haven’t yet come to light, his attorney has told the House of Representatives, and would testify if a court required him to do so.

The witness called by Republicans, Jonathan Turley, said Democrats hadn’t made their case.

“I am concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger,” he said.

Democrats have decided not to wait, and on Wednesday they honed an argument that speed was of the essence. “If we do not act to hold him in check now, President Trump will almost certainly try again to solicit interference in the election for his personal political gain,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.

Gerhardt testified Wednesday that Trump’s behavior clearly qualifies as an impeachable offense.

“The president’s serious misconduct, including bribery, soliciting a personal favor from a foreign leader in exchange for his exercise of power, and obstructing justice and Congress are worse than the misconduct of any prior president, including what previous presidents who faced impeachment have done or been accused of doing,” Gerhardt said, according to prepared testimony.

Noah Feldman, a Harvard University law professor who also testified Wednesday, came to a similar conclusion. “President Trump’s conduct described in the testimony and evidence clearly constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under the Constitution,” he said, according to prepared testimony.

Collins criticized the four law professors brought in to testify, saying to them, “You couldn’t have possibly actually digested the Adam Schiff report from yesterday or the Republican response in any real way.” Schiff, D-Calif., is chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

“I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing because I would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts,” retorted Pamela Karlan, a Stanford University law professor called by Democrats. “I’m insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don’t care about those facts.”