Majority of House Dems Now Support Impeachment Inquiry
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Openly admitting to crimes and then having smoking gun evidence just to be sure does tend to concentrate the mind:
Instead, they were planning to use the coming weeks to build as strong a case as they could against Mr. Trump, with an eye toward drafting articles of impeachment against him. That would mean the House would not vote on the matter unless the articles of impeachment were brought to the floor.
The disclosure to Congress of the whistle-blower’s complaint, coming less than 24 hours after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would pursue an official impeachment inquiry, underscored how rapidly things were changing now that lawmakers had pivoted to using their powers under the Constitution to weigh charges against the president.
It came as the number of House members supporting an impeachment inquiry reached 218, a critical milestone that indicates there is a majority in the House willing to at least consider drafting and voting on articles of impeachment.
You will be surprised that the whistleblower’s memo does not exculpate Trump:
The drumbeat of revelations about the Trump-Zelensky call is likely to continue this week. After the White House allowed some lawmakers Wednesday to review the whistleblower’s complaint, Democrats signaled they were increasingly convinced that the president’s behavior justified their drive for impeachment.
“He copped to asking a foreign power to help him in his election,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). “That’s impeachable.”
The whistleblower complaint focuses largely on the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky, which the whistleblower sees as evidence of Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate his political opponents, according to a person who has read the complaint and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its contents. But the complaint also broadly alleges an effort by Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to pressure Ukrainian officials over time, not just on the July 25 call, this person said. The whistleblower paints a picture, also using public news reports, to suggest that Giuliani pressured Ukrainian officials to further Trump’s interest in investigating his political opponents.
The complaint also alleges a pattern of obfuscation at the White House, in which officials moved the records of some of Trump’s communications with foreign officials onto a separate computer network from where they are normally stored, this person said. The whistleblower alleges that is what officials did with Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky, an action that alarmed the intelligence community inspector general and prompted him to request that the White House retain records of the Zelensky call, the person who read the complaint said.
Still, there are some holdouts on the far right of the party’s caucus:
U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is the only member of Hawaii’s congressional delegation who doesn’t support an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump in the wake of allegations that he pressured Ukraine’s leader to help investigate political rival Joe Biden.
Gabbard said impeachment would further divide the nation.
“I believe that impeachment at this juncture would be terribly divisive for the country at a time when we are already extremely divided,” Gabbard said. “The hyper-partisanship is one of the main things that is driving our country apart.”
Well, it must be admitted that those are certainly buzzwords next to each other. Somebody had to fill the void after the passing of Cokie Roberts!