Pelosi announces impeachment inquiry into Trump over Ukraine scandal
Investigation
will cast a dark cloud over Trump’s already norm-shattering presidency as he
faces re-election
Lauren
Gambino in Washington
@laurenegambino
Wed 25 Sep
2019 01.52 BSTFirst published on Tue 24 Sep 2019 22.12 BST
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi announced that the US House of Representatives would begin a
formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, setting the stage for an
extraordinary constitutional clash over allegations that the president sought
the help of a foreign country to harm a political rival.
“The
actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the
constitution,” Pelosi said in a formal address in Washington on Tuesday
evening. “The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law.”
Impeachment
is a rare and dramatic escalation that will reshape Trump’s already
norm-shattering presidency as he seeks re-election. It is also freighted with
political risks in a nation deeply divided over this president.
Trump
delivered a bellicose response on Twitter, accusing Democrats of “presidential
harassment”.
“Such an
important day at the United Nations, so much work and so much success, and the
Democrats purposely had to ruin and demean it with more breaking news Witch
Hunt garbage,” Trump tweeted from New York as he attended the UN general
assembly there. “So bad for our Country!”
After
months of resistance in the face of calls from many fellow Democrats in
Washington, Pelosi appeared to have determined that Trump’s alleged conduct and
his administration’s refusal to comply with congressional requests for
information and testimony had forced the House’s hand, leaving members no
choice but to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry.
During a
meeting with the Democratic caucus on Tuesday, Pelosi said that they must
“strike while the iron is hot” as she laid out her case for an impeachment
inquiry.
“This is a
national security issue,” she said, according to a senior aide in the room. “And
we cannot let him think that this is a casual thing.”
She vowed
to move ahead “expeditiously”.
In her
official announcement, Pelosi noted that the chairs of six key House committees
already involved in investigating Trump and his administration would make
recommendations to the House judiciary committee, which has the authority to
handle impeachment. Their reports could help form articles of impeachment
brought against the president.
Launching
an impeachment inquiry does not necessarily mean that the House will vote to
charge the president with “high crimes and misdemeanors”, though that is the
likely outcome of such a process. If the House does charge the president, the
articles of impeachment would then be sent to the Senate, which is controlled by
Republicans who rarely break with Trump.
Pelosi’s
announcement follows allegations that Trump pressured the Ukrainian president,
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a July phone call to investigate the son of Joe Biden,
the former vice-president and the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to
compete for the White House in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump has
admitted that he discussed Biden on a call with Zelenskiy but has denied any
suggestion of a “quid pro quo”, even as it was reported that he ordered his
staff to withhold nearly $400m in aid to Ukraine days before his call with
Zelenskiy.
The
allegations came to light after a whistleblower working in US intelligence
filed a formal complaint reportedly related to the phone call. The acting
director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, refused to release the
details of the complaint.
Maguire is
due to testify on Thursday, his deadline for turning over the whistleblower
complaint to Congress.
“In light
of recent reporting on the whistleblower complaint, I want to make clear that I
have upheld my responsibility to follow the law every step of the way,” Maguire
said in a statement on Tuesday evening. “I look forward to working with the
Administration and Congress to find a resolution regarding this important
matter.”
Trump on Tuesday
ordered the unredacted transcript of his summer call with Zelenskiy to be
released on Wednesday, the same day the pair are scheduled to meet on the
sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
“You will
see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call,” Trump tweeted. “No
pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo!” There’s no
evidence to support Trump’s repeated claim that Biden improperly used his
position as vice president to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor to help his son.
Later,
Trump added: “They [the Ukrainian government] don’t know either what the big
deal is. A total Witch Hunt Scam by the Democrats!”
Speaking
earlier on Tuesday, Pelosi said Trump did not have to explicitly threaten aid
to be guilty of an impeachable offense. “There is no requirement there be a
quid pro quo in the conversation,” she said, adding that the “sequence” of
events suggested that the president acted improperly.
Later that
afternoon, the Senate, in a rare act of bipartisanship, unanimously approved a
resolution calling for the DNI to turn over the whistleblower complaint to
Congress.
Pelosi’s
change of heart came as Democrats from across the party amplified their calls
from impeachment after revelations of the whistleblower complaint, which the
intelligence community’s internal watchdog, Gen Michael Atkinson, deemed
credible and an “urgent concern”. The White House has refused to share the
complaint with Congress as typically required by law, arguing that the
allegations do not fall within the intelligence community whistleblower
statute.
For months,
Pelosi had stubbornly resisted calls for Trump’s impeachment, telling
colleagues at various points that the president was “not worth” impeaching and
that she would rather see him “in prison” than impeached.
The House
judiciary committee had been conducting an “impeachment investigation” that
centered on the revelations contained in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s
report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as several other
allegations against Trump, his administration and his financial ties. But now
the inquiry has the full support of the speaker, as well as several once
reluctant members of Congress.
Republicans
said Pelosi’s announcement was a rhetorical exercise.
“She cannot
unilaterally decide we’re in an impeachment inquiry,” the House minority
leader, Kevin McCarthy, said in brief remarks after Pelosi’s address. “What she
said today made no difference with what’s been going on.”
Adam
Schiff, the head of the House permanent select committee on intelligence, said
on Tuesday that the whistleblower would like to speak to the panel and had
requested guidance from the Maguire on how to do so.
Impeachment
is a course of action with few precedents. Only two presidents have ever been
impeached – Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither were
convicted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned before a vote on impeachment in
the full House could be taken.
In the 24
hours preceding Pelosi’s formal address, dozens of Democrats, including those
in districts that voted for Trump, endorsed a plan to move forward with
impeachment. Pelosi informed a Democratic caucus meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday
afternoon of her plans.
“There is
really no other remedy other than impeachment,” said the congresswoman Pramila
Jayapal, a Washington progressive and an early backer of impeaching the
president.
But not all
Democrats support impeachment. Congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said an
impeachment inquiry would distract from Democrats’ legislative priorities and
deepen the political divides in the country.
“I want to
do what’s right. I don’t want to tear the country apart,” he told reporters
after the closed-door meeting. “The majority of Americans, at this point in
time, do not want to see this.”
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