‘Betrayal of his oath of office’: Pelosi opens impeachment inquiry

Source: Politico | September 24, 2019 | Kyle Cheney, Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan

The speaker said that Trump ‘must be held accountable.’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday formally threw her support behind an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, a dramatic move that puts the House on a trajectory to vote to remove the president from office later this fall.

“Today, I’m announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry,” Pelosi said in a statement outside her office on the second floor of the Capitol. “The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”

Pelosi’s announcement capped months of Democratic infighting over whether to support efforts to oust Trump and represents the biggest gamble of her long career. The battle over impeaching Trump is likely to drag into the 2020 presidential campaign and become the biggest issue in key House districts.

Trump and top Republicans dismissed the inquiry as a political stunt designed to damage the president’s reelection campaign next year, and GOP operatives note recent polls show most Americans don’t want to impeach Trump despite viewing his presidency unfavorably. Trump’s reelection campaign began fundraising off Pelosi’s announcement just minutes after her news conference.

“Democrats can’t beat President Trump on his policies or stellar record of accomplishments, so they’re trying to turn a Joe Biden scandal into a Trump problem,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. “The misguided Democratic impeachment strategy is meant to appease their rabid, extreme, leftist base, but will only serve to embolden and energize President Trump’s supporters and create a landslide victory for the president.”

But Democratic outrage over Trump’s alleged threat to cut off U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless officials there launched an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son persuaded House Democrats from across the party’s ideological spectrum to back an inquiry. Dozens of centrist and moderate Democrats have come out in support of impeachment during the past 72 hours, persuading Pelosi and other top party leaders to back the effort.

Leaving a two-hour closed-door caucus meeting, Pelosi told reporters the Ukraine controversy is a “sea change” for her. Earlier in the day, Pelosi spoke on the phone with Trump. The conversation was initially about gun control but veered into other topics, including Trump urging the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens.

Pelosi told lawmakers that Trump said he had nothing to do with blocking the whistleblower complaint to which the speaker told him to “undo it,” according to sources in the room.

In fact, the White House is preparing to release to Congress by the end of the week both the whistleblower complaint and the inspector general report, according to a senior administration official, reversing its position after withholding the documents from lawmakers.

“The president of the United States admitted that he spoke to the president of a foreign country — that would be Ukraine — about something that would assist him in his election, Pelosi told reporters later. “So that has changed everything.”

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  • Consistent September 24, 2019 at 10:20 pm #31858

    <p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>BREAKING: Pelosi told Democrats behind closed doors that she is ready for the House to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his family https://t.co/i1Wo7ttSHA</p>— POLITICO (@politico) September 24, 2019

    <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js&#8221; charset=”utf-8″></script>

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 10:33 pm #31859

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 10:33 pm #31860

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 10:35 pm #31861

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 10:43 pm #31862

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 10:46 pm #31863

    EVERYDAY September 24, 2019 at 10:57 pm #31864

    Impeachment willikely go nowhere. The senate won’t have enough votes to convict and it may endeavor to delay any proceeding or just ignore whatever charges the house comes up with.

    That said, just the action of impeachment can work very well for the Dems’ efforts to regain the majority in the Senate (put us in charge and we will get rid of Trump). Might work for whoever the presidential nominee is too.

    Anyway, I’m glad someone is at least going to make the effort to rid us of this nightmare president.

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 10:57 pm #31865

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 11:03 pm #31866

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 11:04 pm #31867

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 11:08 pm #31868

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 11:18 pm #31872

    Consistent September 24, 2019 at 11:23 pm #31873

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