Dems move ahead on inquiry
GOP unanimously opposes resolution on impeachment
WASHINGTON — The House took a critical step forward in its impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Thursday, approving guidelines for the public phase of the probe as a top White House official corroborated earlier accounts that the president pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival.
In a virtually party-line vote, the House approved a resolution, 232-196, that formalized the inquiry, clearing the way for nationally televised hearings in mid-November and ensuring Trump’s right to participate in the latter stage of the proceedings unless he tries to block witnesses from testifying.
The vote came as Tim Morrison, a top official on Trump’s National Security Council, testified in a closed-door deposition. Morrison backed up previous testimony that the president withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to pressure the country into announcing investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and interference in the 2016 election, according to his prepared remarks and people familiar with his testimony. He said he got the information directly from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, the administration official who communicated that apparent quid pro quo to
Ukrainian leaders.
Trump has vehemently denied the arrangement, which is the focus of the impeachment probe.
Together, the events marked significant progress for the House’s five-week-old inquiry and triggered an escalation in the partisan rancor that has dominated the impeachment process.
The vote was the House’s first on impeachment, and the Democrats’ response to repeated GOP complaints about a closed-door process.
All voting Republicans opposed the package.
Democratic leaders expected that two to four of their members would vote against the resolution. In the end, Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Jeff Van Drew, D-N.J., who represent Republicanleaning districts, opposed it.
Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., one of the few Trump-district Democrats who has been reluctant about backing an impeachment inquiry, voted yes.
“I like the fact that the transcripts will be made public and the American public will get the chance to understand what’s going on,” he said Wednesday, adding that he still is not convinced Trump needs to be impeached.
Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-N.Y., who was undecided as of Wednesday night, also supported the resolution, telling Syracuse.com that the vote will “allow a fair and open process and will finally let
Americans judge for themselves.”
Complicating the investigation was a judge’s decision Thursday to hear arguments Dec. 10 on whether Charles Kupperman, a former deputy national security adviser, should be an impeachment witness. The date that means the issue may not be resolved before a House vote. Democrats also have requested testimony next week from Kupperman’s former boss ex-national security adviser John Bolton, whose decision could be affected by the judge’s ruling.
After the House vote, the White House accused Democrats of having an “unhinged obsession” with impeachment, with press secretary Stephanie Grisham calling the effort a “blatantly partisan attempt to destroy the president.”
Trump, who had no public events on his daily schedule, tweeted: “The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!”
House Republicans, who spent weeks calling for a vote on the inquiry, began to pivot from complaints about the process toward a more robust defense of Trump’s actions.
“There is nothing in that phone call that is wrong or impeachable,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
Morrison’s testimony carried both the significance of a firsthand account and the weight of that testimony coming from someone with a solid Republican résumé.
In his opening remarks, Morrison confirmed the substance of last week’s testimony from the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, and noted that he asked the National Security Council’s legal adviser and deputy to review Trump’s call with Zelensky.
Morrison said he did not think it was improper but expressed concern about “how it would play out in Washington’s polarized environment” if the transcript leaked. He also worried that a leak would affect bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress and Ukraine’s sense of that support.
Republicans, who had focused for weeks on the process, shifted their argument, blasting the impeachment inquiry as an underhanded attempt to force Trump from office. They urged Democrats to abandon the effort and let voters decide Trump’s fate in the next presidential election.
“To my colleagues on the other side, I say this: Give the people back their power,” McCarthy said. “Let them choose the next leader of the free world. Follow the principles of our Constitution. And do not dilute our democracy by interfering in elections from Washington.”
The resolution allows the president and his counsel to request and query witnesses and participate in impeachment proceedings once they reach the Judiciary Committee, which is tasked with writing any articles of impeachment that will be voted on by the House. It also authorizes the House Intelligence Committee to release transcripts of its closeddoor depositions to the public, and it directs the committee to write and then release a report on that investigation in the same fashion.
The resolution gives the Republican minority on both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees a chance to subpoena documents and testimony, provided that either the Democratic chairman or a majority of the committee agrees. And it establishes special procedures under which the chairman and top Republican on the panel can take up to 90 minutes to make their cases or defer to a staff lawyer to do so.
Leading Republicans were adamant that not a single GOP member would back the measure, and they leaned heavily on Republicans who have openly criticized the president in the past.
“It is still not a fair process in my mind,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who, like most Republicans, voted against the resolution.”It is still a process where the Democrats call all the shots and we were not consulted along the way . ... So, no. I’m a no.”
Before the vote, Pelosi described the impeachment inquiry as a “solemn” and “prayerful” process - “not cause for any glee or comfort.”
At the same time, she said, “I don’t know why Republicans are afraid of the truth.”
“Every member should support the American people hearing the facts for themselves,” Pelosi said in a floor speech.