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The full House of Representatives will vote this week on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, addressing the White House argument that the probe has been illegitimate.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote for today, saying in a letter to fellow representatives that she wants to “eliminate any doubt” about the process. Pelosi says the impeachment inquiry resolution will “affirm the ongoing and existing investigation . . . establish the procedures for hearings that are open to the American people . . . outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee . . . and sets forth due process rights for the president and his counsel.”
Trump and his Republican supporters have called the impeachment probe illegitimate because it is being held behind closed doors and the full House never voted for it. Pelosi says that argument “has no merit.”
There is no law saying the entire House has to approve an investigation and the majority party in control — currently the Democrats — set out the rules for an impeachment process.
Ahead of the vote, hearings in the impeachment inquiry continue Tuesday with the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees set to hear from Alexander Vindman, an Army lieutenant colonel who is part of the National Security Council.
Vindman says in a prepared opening statement obtained and shared by numerous media organisations that he was among those who listened in on the July 25 call in which Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for “a favour.” Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate alleged Ukrainian meddling on behalf of Democrats in the 2016 US election and allegations of corruption by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian natural gas company.
“I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a US citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the US government’s support of Ukraine,” Vindman says.
He also described a meeting two weeks before the call in which he says Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, “started to speak about Ukraine delivering specific investigations” in order for the Ukrainians to secure a meeting between Zelenskiy and Trump. — AP
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