Impeachment Proceedings Against Trump Due to ‘Ukraine-Gate’ Could Begin This Week

This whole “Ukraine-Gate” scandal is big. Real big. So big that impeachment proceedings against Trump because of it could begin this week.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is set to make a public announcement today – Tuesday – at 2:00 pm California time. She is meeting with the entire Democratic Caucus an hour before.

What it’s all about and what we know so far:

Trump pressured newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky up to at least eight times in a call to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Trump admitted this on Sunday, Sept. 22.

Meanwhile military aid to Ukraine – already approved by Congress – was held up until after the phone call; Trump had asked his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to put a hold on 400 millions in military aid to Ukraine roughly one week before the call. A whistleblower within the intelligence community made a formal complaint weeks ago about Trump’s “promises” to Zelensky.

About the whistleblower’s complaint: CNN had earlier reported, citing a source familiar with the case, that the complaint was prompted by concerns over communications between the President and a foreign leader. The alleged whistleblower didn’t have direct knowledge of the communications that partly prompted the complaint to the inspector general, an official briefed on the matter told CNN on Thursday. Instead, the whistleblower’s concerns came in part from learning information that was not obtained during the course of their work, and those details have played a role in the administration’s determination that the complaint didn’t fit the reporting requirements under the intelligence whistleblower law, the official said.

But the complaint is being held up by the White House and Congress is being denied access to either the complaint or the whistleblower – up to now.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has just announced that the whistleblower’s attorney has informed the committee that he would like to testify.  The testimony, he said, could happen as soon as this week.

So far, at least 158 House Democrats back a possible impeachment inquiry. Joe Biden says Congress has no other choice. Bernie Sanders has reiterated his stance on impeachment. Elizabeth Warren has demanded that Congress do its Constitutional duty and begin impeachment.

And it all could come down this week.

5 p.m. ET: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making a statement. Here’s what she said publicly earlier today:

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and many other, shall we say candidates of impeachable offense in terms of the Constitution of the United States. But this is the most understandable by the public. And It’s really important to know this.

There is no requirement there be a quid pro quo in the conversation. If the President brings up he wants them to investigate something, that’s to — of his political opponent, that is self-evident that it is not right. You don’t ask foreign governments to help us in our election.

That’s what we try to stop with Russia. It’s wrong.

So it’s not only about how we make decisions about our foreign policy and our global security. It’s about undermining the integrity of our election.That’s A. B: I don’t think there’s a — I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a grasp on the part of this administration that the quid pro quo is not essential to an impeachable offense, but if you have sequencing, like a couple of days before the President withdrew the bipartisan support for Ukraine. Bipartisan enthusiastic support for Ukraine a few days earlier, he withdraws it, then makes this statement.

President’s words weigh tons. Weigh tons. And just bringing up the election is bad enough. That there would be a quid pro quo isn’t necessarily in the conversation, but in the sequencing.

So this is not a good thing for a democracy, for the leader of the free world to be talking like that, and I don’t even know if there are any scruples involved.

That’s why I say they think lawlessness is a virtue and now want to export it to another country.”