Impeachment Push Builds as Democrats Blast Trump Over Ukraine
Impeachment Push Builds as Democrats Blast Trump Over Ukraine
(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is convening a pivotal meeting with members of her party Tuesday as she faces mounting pressure to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
A steady stream of Democrats in the House have shifted from urging caution on impeachment to backing action after revelations that the president pushed Ukraine’s government to investigate Joe Biden, currently the Democratic front-runner to challenge Trump in 2020.
Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday she would have an announcement Tuesday afternoon but declined to give any details. The growing clamor among Democrats includes several senior lawmakers who are close to Pelosi and, significantly, a group of first-term Democrats elected from Republican-leaning districts where backing impeachment is politically risky.
“There’s people who call my office pushing for impeachment, there’s people who call my office saying, ‘Please don’t drag us into this,’” said Michigan Representative Elissa Slotkin, who defeated an incumbent Republican in 2018. “It wasn’t that I read the tea leaves in my district, it’s that the specter of this particular set of incidents crossed the Rubicon for me on a national security issue, on a constitutional issue.”
Up to now, Pelosi has throttled back the furor for impeachment among Democrats in safe seats as she looked to protect members facing re-election in districts won by Trump in 2016. Following a string of revelations about Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine, she will meet Tuesday with six committee chairmen leading various Trump investigations, then the entire Democratic caucus.
Among the topics to be discussed will be whether to proceed with a House vote possibly this week on a resolution condemning Trump, while the caucus considers impeachment, say multiple House officials.
There are also discussions about possible use of a select committee to investigate the president’s dealings with Ukraine and other matters. But there is opposition to that idea from those who say the impeachment inquiry should stay in the Judiciary Committee.
Biden’s campaign said the former vice president would back impeachment if the White House refuses to comply with demands from Congress for information on Trump’s interactions with Ukraine. He plans to make a statement Tuesday afternoon.
Trump has accused Biden, when he was vice president, of pressuring Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general in 2016 in order to stop an investigation of a company connected to his son, Hunter Biden. However, the investigation had already been shelved by that time.
Ukraine Aid
Three House committees announced earlier this month that they were investigating whether Trump used the withholding of military aid as leverage to get Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to probe Biden and his son -- an allegation that may be bolstered by a whistle-blower complaint from inside the U.S. intelligence community.
The official raised concerns about the call between Trump and Zelenskiy as well as other actions, according to another person familiar with the matter.
Trump acknowledged ordering a halt to $400 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, but claimed it was out of frustration that European nations were not contributing to the country’s fight against Russian-backed separatists.
As he did with the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016, Trump dismissed the inquiries into his actions on Ukraine as a “witch hunt.”
“I’m leading in the polls. They have no idea how they stop me,” he told reporters in New York. “The only way they can try is through impeachment. This has never happened to a president before.”
Seven freshmen Democrats from crucial swing districts wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday night that “if these allegations are true, we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense.” The seven representatives are Slotkin, Gil Cisneros of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Elaine Luria of Virginia, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia.
Illustrating the political risks, the House Republicans’ campaign arm blasted Luria and Spanberger for having “dropped their phony moderate act to join their impeachment-obsessed base and it will cost them their seats in 2020.”
Slotkin said on the House floor that she was supporting action despite the political risks.
“I hope that my constituents, many of whom do not support impeachment, at least give me the opportunity to prove that I did this on judiciousness and integrity,” she said.
‘Time to Act’
Some of Pelosi’s allies in the House also have moved to back impeachment.
”Now is the time to act,” said Democratic Representative John Lewis of Georgia. He said lawmakers will “never find the truth” about whether a foreign government was asked to intervene in the 2020 election unless they use their power to begin an official investigation.
“I truly believe the time to begin impeachment proceedings against this president has come,” Lewis said.
One early test could be a resolution being prepared by House leaders to condemn Trump over his refusal to allow Congress to obtain the still-mysterious whistle-blower complaint. That complaint raised concerns about the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy, as well as other actions that haven’t yet been made public, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is being called to testify Thursday before the House Intelligence Committee about why he and the administration are refusing to turn over that complaint to Chairman Adam Schiff.
In the Senate, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he will attempt to pass a resolution calling for the whistle-blower complaint to be given to the Intelligence Committees of both the House and Senate.
Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, told reporters that his panel will ask Maguire and the inspector general about the whistle-blower complaint during a closed session on Thursday.
What remains unchanged is the slim chance that the Republican majority in the Senate would ever convict Trump of impeachment articles sent over by the House.
‘Outrage Machine’
Most Republicans have insisted they needed more time to learn the facts before passing any judgment on the president. Lawmakers in the party are a potential firewall for Trump in any impeachment proceedings, because it would take 67 senators to convict him in the event of any formal charges from the Democratic House.
Many Republican senators said they want to wait until the Senate Intelligence Committee can hear testimony this week about the whistle-blower complaint. Some senior Republicans questioned the allegations.
“The Democrats are cranking up the outrage machine again, beating the impeachment drum,” said Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican.“They didn’t get what they wanted out of the Mueller investigation. They’re hoping they have something here. I just don’t see it.”
In an unusual move, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor Monday afternoon to defend his own role seeking the release of the money to Ukraine, stating that he personally implored the secretaries of state and defense to do so and that his staff made other entreaties. He did not specifically criticize Trump, however.
James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, said there’s been a lot of speculation about the content of Trump’s call with Zelenskiy, and he said people rushing to judgment should wait to see the whistle-blower’s report.
“Let’s get the report and let’s just keep following it,” Lankford said. “I don’t have problem saying, ‘follow the truth wherever it goes.’”
“That’s a very serious matter, and so determining whether that was the case or not or what the nature was of the conversation I think is critical,” Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, told reporters. “And what actions might be taken would depend upon what actually happened. So I’m not going to speculate on what actions might be taken until we know what exactly happened.”
--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis, Laura Litvan, Daniel Flatley and Tyler Pager.
To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Anna Edgerton
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