Pelosi announces formal Trump impeachment inquiry
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., addresses reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019, as Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire appears before the House Intelligence Committee about a secret whistleblower complaint involving President Donald Trump. Pelosi committed Tuesday to launching a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker Pelosi announced last week that the House will be moving forward with an inquiry to impeach President Trump.
A whistleblower has come forward with allegations that Trump pressured the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to find incriminating evidence about his potential 2020 competitor Joe Biden.
The phone call between Trump and Zelensky took place on July 25, and reports were filed that Trump had committed a violation of U.S. ethics law during this call.
The whistleblower claims that Trump wanted information about former Vice President Joe Biden using his position to pressure a Ukrainian company to hire his son, Hunter Biden.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham told the Associated Press, “The White House will continue to push back on the hysteria and false narratives being peddled by Democrats and many in the main stream media.”
“[The complaint] is nothing more than a collection of third-hand accounts of events and cobbled-together press clippings,” Grisham said.
These allegations were reviewed by the inspector general who deemed the evidence justified an investigation.
The House Democrats requested the call transcripts to prove the allegations were true, but the transcripts were not published until the following day for fear that releasing them would set a bad precedent for future interactions with foreign leaders.
Assistant Professor of Political Science Dr. Mark Scully said the inspector general conducted his investigation, but the documents were not published due to resistance from Trump.
“Trump is asserting executive privilege over the content of the I.G. report,” said Scully. “This resistance [from Trump] is what sparked the impeachment inquiry.”
“Many House Democrats have been wanting to impeach Trump,” said Dr. Thomas Pope, Associate Professor of Political Science, “but [the Democratic party] knows it would be politically disastrous to initiate the [impeachment] process and not be able to succeed… so the timing of this is politically telling.”
This is only the beginning stage of the impeachment inquiry. The House Democrats have chosen this situation to highlight previous claims made against Trump during his presidency.
“The next logical step would be to see the whistleblower testify to the senate judiciary committee,” said Anna Davidson, a junior communication arts major, “but no one has come forward to verify the claims.”
