Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced Tuesday evening that Democrats in Congress would be moving forward with a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Pelosi has shown reluctance to go down the path of impeachment for over a year, preferring instead for the American people to decide the fate of the president in the 2020 election.
But Pelosi said she was swayed by the recent reports that Trump allegedly withheld aid to Ukraine while he was pressuring the country to investigate political opponent former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Pelosi said the news that Trump may have been conducting similar activities with foreign governments as he did during the 2016 election when he beat Hillary Clinton, had changed the conversation around impeachment for her and the Democratic Caucus.
“The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” said Pelosi after she had gathered with House Democrats in a closed door meeting.
“Today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry,” she added.
House oversight committees that have been investigating the Trump administration for months will continue to do so, but now under the “umbrella of impeachment inquiry,” Pelosi said.
In a statement, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee as well as the committee on oversight and reform, said he “strongly” supports Pelosi’s decision to begin official impeachment proceedings against Trump.
“By his own admission, the president pressured a foreign leader to take action that would directly benefit his reelection campaign,” said Welch, who only decided to back impeachment in July.
“He has repeatedly violated his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend our Constitution,” he added.
Pelosi’s change in tack over the question of impeachment comes after reports that in July, Trump allegedly asked his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold $391 million in aid to Ukraine a week before he allegedly told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden’s business interests and Joe Biden’s connection to them.
An unidentified whistleblower had filed a complaint with Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, last month about the communication between Trump and the Ukraine president.
However, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire refused to share the complaint with Congress, a decision that violates federal law.
Before Pelosi made the announcement, Trump tweeted that he would release an unredacted transcript of his phone call with President Zelensky. Trump added that the public would see a “friendly and totally appropriate call.”
“This is nothing more than a continuation of the Greatest and most Destructive Witch Hunt of all time!” Trump ended the tweet.
On Monday, seven first-year House Democrats, who are veterans of the military and of the nation’s defense and intelligence agencies, co-wrote an op-ed published in the Washington Post saying Trump’s reported attempt to pressure a foreign nation into investigating a political opponent is highly suspect.
“These allegations are stunning, both in the national security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent,” the Democrats wrote.
In May, just after special counsel Robert Mueller released his report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Welch said he did not think it was appropriate to call for impeachment at the time.
However, as Trump continued to stonewall congressional investigations into the administration and escalate attacks on immigrants and people of color, Welch became more confident in voicing his support to impeach the president.
In July, during a town hall in Montpelier, Welch explained why he thought the president should be impeached, despite Pelosi, whom he has a close relationship with, still refusing to back formal impeachment proceedings.
Earlier on Tuesday, during a forum sponsored by the Atlantic magazine, Pelosi said her decision to now back impeaching Trump was not a political calculus.
“This is about patriotism,” Pelosi said.
