Impeachment moves forward as Speaker Nancy Pelosi solemnly backs official inquiry

This after­noon, Speak­er of the House Nan­cy Pelosi announced an offi­cial impeach­ment inquiry into Indi­vid­ual Num­ber One — Don­ald Trump.

Just after 5 PM East­ern, Pelosi deliv­ered a short speech in sup­port of impeach­ment at the Capi­tol to a room absolute­ly packed full of reporters and tele­vi­sion cameras.

Pelosi’s action comes in the midst of an evolv­ing scan­dal involv­ing Don­ald Trump, the Pres­i­dent of Ukraine, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son Hunter.

For months, Trump­world has become fix­at­ed on a com­plex con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry – ped­dled main­ly by Rudy Giu­liani, Trump’s sur­ro­gate and per­son­al lawyer – that cen­ters on a 2015 vis­it then-Vice Pres­i­dent Biden made to Kiev.

Trump’s cronies claim that Biden used his posi­tion to influ­ence Ukrain­ian law­mak­ers to fire the country’s chief pros­e­cu­tor Vik­tor Shokin, in order to pro­tect Hunter Biden’s Ukrain­ian busi­ness part­ners from cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tions. You can read the details of this con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry, and the real truth behind the sto­ry, here.

Trump’s allies have been using this sto­ry to throw shade at Biden, who Trump seems to con­sid­er his most like­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger, for months.

Speak­er Pelosi’s deci­sion to throw her sup­port behind an impeach­ment inquiry comes amid reports that Don­ald Trump him­self mis­used his author­i­ty to solic­it for­eign assis­tance for his 2020 reelec­tion campaign.

The scan­dal began when reports emerged that a whistle­blow­er from a U.S. intel­li­gence agency had expressed seri­ous con­cerns about a call between Trump and a for­eign leader. That leader turned out to Volodymyr Zelen­skiy, the new­ly-elect­ed Pres­i­dent of Ukraine, who Trump called on July 25th.

In that con­ver­sa­tion, Trump alleged­ly pressed Zelen­skiy to inves­ti­gate Hunter Biden. Trump has admit­ted that Biden was dis­cussed dur­ing the call.

An inquiry cen­ter­ing on Hunter Biden would, in the­o­ry, also ensnare Joe Biden and – accord­ing to many Repub­li­cans’ cal­cu­la­tions – there­by harm the top Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date cam­paign­ing to dis­place Trump in Novem­ber of next year.

Giv­ing cre­dence to the idea that Trump pres­sured Zelen­skiy into inves­ti­gat­ing the Bidens is report­ing that Trump ordered that $400 mil­lion in U.S. mil­i­tary aid be held back from Ukraine before his call to Zelenskiy.

This would have cre­at­ed an obvi­ous quid pro quo sit­u­a­tion for the Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent. Ukraine has been bogged down in a qua­si-war against Russ­ian-backed sep­a­ratist mil­i­tants in the east of the coun­try since 2014.

Nan­cy Pelosi’s deci­sion to pro­ceed with an offi­cial impeach­ment inquiry fol­lows months of lob­by­ing by pro­gres­sive activists in sup­port of impeachment.

For Pelosi, though, Trump’s lat­est mis­con­duct appears to have been the cat­a­lyst for choos­ing this moment to make a pub­lic pro­nounce­ment for impeachment.

“For the past sev­er­al months, we have been inves­ti­gat­ing in our com­mit­tees and lit­i­gat­ing in the courts so the House can gath­er all the rel­e­vant facts and con­sid­er whether to exer­cise its full Arti­cle I pow­ers, includ­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er of the utmost grav­i­ty, approval of arti­cles of impeach­ment,” Pelosi said.

“And this week, the pres­i­dent has admit­ted to ask­ing the pres­i­dent of Ukraine to take actions which would ben­e­fit him politically.”

“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. There­fore, today, I’m announc­ing the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is mov­ing for­ward with an offi­cial impeach­ment inquiry. I’m direct­ing our six com­mit­tees to pro­ceed with their inves­ti­ga­tions under that umbrel­la of impeach­ment inquiry. The pres­i­dent must be held accountable.”

“No one is above the law,” she added.

Repub­li­cans are already mis­char­ac­ter­iz­ing Pelosi’s move as sim­ply the lat­est stage in a “witch hunt” against Trump. How­ev­er, many appeared sur­prised by her announce­ment, hav­ing not expect­ed it to come today.

Trump has respond­ed to the news in his usu­al man­ner, with a series of tweets claim­ing, “NO quid pro quo!” and “Pres­i­den­tial Harass­ment!”

Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, on the oth­er hand, cheered the move, with Tom Stey­er, Beto O’Rourke, Eliz­a­beth War­ren and oth­ers applaud­ing Pelosi.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee also gave its full back­ing to Pelosi’s move.

“I stand with Speak­er Pelosi and House Democ­rats as they move for­ward with this impeach­ment inquiry,” said DNC Chair Tom Perez.

“Based on the president’s own admis­sion, he has com­mit­ted a gross abuse of pow­er. Con­gress has an oblig­a­tion to thor­ough­ly inves­ti­gate this mat­ter and oth­er wrong­do­ing; any­thing less would be an abdi­ca­tion of its con­sti­tu­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty to serve as a check on the exec­u­tive branch.”

“Don­ald Trump has made count­less promis­es to the Amer­i­can peo­ple, but he’s proven that he’s only capa­ble of serv­ing him­self — and that there is no line he won’t cross to do so. Amer­i­cans are tired of it, and they deserve better.”

“Democ­rats are fight­ing day in and day out to expand access to health care, raise wages, help the Amer­i­can work­er, and uphold the rule of law. That is our promise to Amer­i­ca – and unlike this pres­i­dent, we keep our promises.”

Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors from the Pacif­ic North­west were also supportive.

“I sup­port Speak­er Pelosi’s deci­sion to ini­ti­ate a for­mal impeach­ment inquiry,” said Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell. “No one is above the law. We must safe­guard our democ­ra­cy and stop for­eign inter­fer­ence in our elections.”

“What the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives did by open­ing an impeach­ment inquiry is essen­tial to pro­tect­ing the well-being of the coun­try,” agreed Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden.

Today’s announce­ment by Speak­er Pelosi is no guar­an­tee that impeach­ment efforts will actu­al­ly suc­ceed. Only two pres­i­dents in his­to­ry have ever been impeached by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives: Andrew John­son in 1868 and Bill Clin­ton in 1998. Richard Nixon avoid­ed impeach­ment over the Water­gate scan­dal by resign­ing in 1974, before the House could vote on impeachment.

And even if the House does impeach Trump, it wouldn’t result in his removal from office. Impeach­ment is akin to indict­ment in a crim­i­nal proceeding.

If Trump is impeached, he would face a tri­al in the Repub­li­can-con­trolled Sen­ate, presided over by Supreme Court Chief Jus­tice John Roberts — but with the pro­ceed­ings orches­trat­ed in large part by Mitch McConnell.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans are already cir­cling the wag­ons in sup­port of Trump and all but promis­ing to vote to acquit him from what­ev­er charges the House brings.

Nonethe­less, there is val­ue to the House impeach­ing Trump. If Trump is not impeached, it sends a ter­ri­ble mes­sage that there are no con­se­quences for bla­tant abus­es of pow­er, leav­ing our democ­ra­cy in a per­ilous situation.