Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday he wants the U.S. House of Representatives to hold a formal vote on whether to move forward with the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, taking the position of many congressional Republicans.
Last month Scott became the first Republican governor in the country to back the impeachment inquiry, saying that he wanted lawmakers “to figure out what exactly did happen, establish the facts, and let the facts drive us from there to where we go.”
However, on Wednesday, he told reporters that the inquiry has become “politicized on both sides” and that he believed the process needs to be more transparent.
He also said he wanted lawmakers to take a vote on whether to proceed with the inquiry, as many Republicans, including Trump, have pressured Democratic leaders to do in recent days.
“There is a responsibility of Congress to take a vote on this and let us know what they think and then move forward from there,” Scott said.
At the center of the inquiry against Trump are allegations that he pressured Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden.
House Republicans have been pushing to vote on a formal impeachment inquiry resolution, arguing that lawmakers voted on resolutions before impeachment proceedings were brought against former Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon.
On Tuesday, the White House said it would not cooperate with the impeachment proceedings unless the House held a formal vote on the matter.
In a letter, the president’s lawyer, Pat Cipollone, called the inquiry “constitutionally invalid and a violation of due process” because there had been no vote authorizing it.
The House of Representatives “has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the President without a majority of the House taking political accountability for that decision by voting to authorize such a dramatic constitutional step,” Pat Cipollone, the president’s lawyer, wrote in a letter this week.
Last month, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., proposed voting on a resolution on the matter and this week requested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put a pause on the investigation “until transparent and equitable rules and procedures are established to govern the inquiry.”
Pelosi has rejected the resolution and requests for a formal vote on the impeachment investigation.
She says that under current rules, Democratically-controlled House panels already have the power to carry out the inquiry without formal authorization.
Scott called Trump’s move to block officials from testifying in the impeachment inquiry this “more gamesmanship.” But he also criticized Congress for failing to make the investigation more transparent, and taking much of it behind closed doors.
“I’m not sure that we’re hearing everything that’s happening and that’s why it’s important, again, to be transparent, have a vote … and then have the inquiry to see if the charges and the allegations rise to that level,” he said.
Scott said Wednesday that he hoped the allegations against Trump “do not rise to the level of impeachment” because it wouldn’t be good for the country.
“We have enough polarization as it is right now, we have enough disruption in our country and I’d like for Congress to be able to focus on other things that really matter — not that this doesn’t matter.”
