Pelosi Announces Vote To Formalize Impeachment Process To ‘Ensure Transparency’

By
Jordan Riddle
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OPINION | This article contains opinion. This site is licensed to publish this content.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is looking to move forward with an official vote on the impeachment inquiry.

A vote on the full House floor would formalize the impeachment inquiry process, setting up parameters and a more transparent process.

Fox News reports:

In a letter sent to Democratic House lawmakers, Pelosi, D-Calif., said the resolution “affirms the ongoing, existing investigation” and “establishes the procedure” for future investigative steps.

“We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said.

Fox News has learned the vote will take place Thursday on the House floor.

And:

Republicans for weeks have called for a formal House vote, challenging the legitimacy of the current framework for impeachment proceedings in the absence of one. Earlier this month, the White House wrote a defiant eight-page letter to Pelosi and top Democrats saying it would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

Pelosi made clear in her letter that the vote is being conducted because of the Republican complaints. She accused Trump and his GOP allies of holding the position that “because the House has not taken a vote, they may simply pretend the impeachment inquiry does not exist.”

Whereas this is not an actual vote to impeach Trump (an article of impeachment), it sets up the ground rules for an impeachment process.

BizPac Review reports:

In a post on their website entitled “Democrats to put lipstick on a pig,” the GOP denounced Pelosi’s intention to at this point call for a House vote:

A so-called “formal vote” does not change the fact Democrats have shredded the Constitution to get to this point and have leaked, lied, and hid behind closed doors from day one.

Their impeachment sham has been illegitimate from the beginning.

In a sign about how messed up the Democrats’ priorities are, they’re voting on this charade before voting to pass the USMCA, before the bipartisan lowering of prescription drug prices, before combatting the opioid crisis, and before funding infrastructure improvements.

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President Trump has expressed his frustration over the current impeachment inquiry process as Democratic members are interrogating members of the Trump administration behind closed doors. Democratic members are then leaking selective information that is damaging to Trump.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham echoed these sentiments in a statement made in response to Pelosi’s announcement.

“We won’t be able to comment fully until we see the actual text, but Speaker Pelosi is finally admitting what the rest of America already knew – that Democrats were conducting an unauthorized impeachment proceeding, refusing to give the President due process, and their secret, shady, closed-door depositions are completely and irreversibly illegitimate,” Grisham said via Fox News.

Republican members of Congress expressed their own doubts over Pelosi’s new call for a vote. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise is among several members who said the official vote comes after Democrats have spent weeks attacking Trump behind closed doors.

“Pelosi let Schiff hold secret hearings and leak misleading info to attack @realDonaldTrump for weeks,” he tweeted. “Now she wants a vote to ‘formalize’ a process that’s already tainted. Dems aren’t trying to change their Soviet-style impeachment process, they’re formally endorsing it.”

And, via BizPac Review:

“We will not legitimize the Schiff/Pelosi sham impeachment,” tweeted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday after Nancy Pelosi announced a move to take a vote this week on the impeachment inquiry process. McCarthy and numerous other Republicans blasted the Democrats’ ongoing, bogus impeachment process that has, for more than a month now, been playing out behind closed doors and on liberal media platforms.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham similarly said the call for a vote now—after Democrats have been making a mockery of the process—is like “unringing a bell.”

Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz said the call to formalize the process is confirmation that it is currently being conducted “devoid of rules and lacks legitimacy.”