UPDATED 10/31, 12:05 p.m. ET: The House of Representatives has given the go-ahead for a resolution that outlines the procedure for the public portion of Trump's impeachment inquiry.
The White House stated, "With today’s vote, Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have done nothing more than enshrine unacceptable violations of due process into House rules." Trump reliably had an extremely regurgitative and still vastly off-base comment:
UPDATED 9/25, 10:34 a.m. ET: As promised, the White House released the transcript of President Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president, the New York Timesreports. In it, Trump asks President Zelensky to liaison with Attorney General William P. Barr about embarking on an investigation into the business dealings of Joe Biden and his son.
"There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great," Trump says in the transcript. A note at the end of the transcript points out that it is "not a verbatim transcript of a discussion," though people were still gobsmacked by how damaging it actually is.
Meanwhile, Trump tweeted an old video of Pelosi condemning the impeachment of President Clinton, in what seems like an effort to discredit her current impeachment inquiry.
He also defended the contents of the transcript, saying it was a "perfect call."
UPDATED 9/24/19 at 6:04 p.m. ET: A number of Democratic lawmakers, including 2020 presidential candidates, have expressed their support for the impeachment inquiry. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker released the following statement to CNN:
What we’re facing isn’t a political issue, it’s a moral one. In 2016, Trump openly welcomed foreign adversaries to meddle in our democracy for his own political gain. Now, by his own admission, he appears to be using the same playbook to undermine our democratic institutions and remain in power.
New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed Booker:
Take a look at several other responses to the impeachment inquiry announcement below.
UPDATED 9/24/19 at 5:23 p.m. ET: As expected, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that Congress will launch an official impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.
"The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the Constitution," she said Tuesday. "The President must be held accountable. No one is above the law."
Trump responded to the announcement via Twitter, referring to it as "witch hunt garbage."
Trump's re-election campaign manager Brad Parscale called the impeachment inquiry "misguided" and claimed it would result in a "landslide victory" for Trump in 2020.
Read the original story below.
Though she's previously resisted impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to announce a formal inquiry Tuesday, after a meeting with House Democrats, the Washington Post reports.
"I've said to people, 'As soon as we have the facts, we're ready.' Now we have the facts. We're ready ... for later today," Pelosi said at Tuesday's Atlantic's Ideas Summit. "... If the president brings up, he wants them to investigate something of his political opponent, that is self-evident that it is not right. We don’t ask foreign governments to help us in our election."
Calls for impeachment have surged over the past week, following a bombshell report that POTUS had pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. According to a whistleblower complaint reportedly filed within the intelligence community, Trump had pushed President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the claims that Joe Biden had used his political power to protect his son's business dealings in Ukraine. The details of the complaint have not been revealed, but the Post reports that the filing pointed to a concerning "promise" Trump had made to a foreign leader.
Over the weekend, Trump acknowledged that the July phone call with Zelensky took place, and admitted to discussing Joe and Hunter Biden.
"We had a great conversation. The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption — all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son (adding to the corruption)," he told reporters.
On Monday, Trump announced that the U.S. had withheld $400 million in military aid from the Ukraine, prompting more allegations that POTUS had put a quid pro quo before Zelinsky during the July phone call in question. Trump has denied the allegations of extorting Ukraine, and has claimed that the delay of military aid had nothing to do with the Biden family, but instead on a desire to have European countries contribute. He also said he will release the full transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian president to prove it was "totally appropriate." Trump has not indicated if the whistleblower complaint, which Congress has yet to see, will also be released.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), who revealed the secret complaint, said the whistleblower has expressed interest in speaking to his congressional panel, which is expected to receive his testimony "as soon as next week."
"We have been informed by the whistleblower’s counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting [director of national intelligence] DNI as to how to do so," Schiff tweeted Tuesday. "We‘re in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower’s testimony as soon as this week."
Pelosi is scheduled to make her announcement at 5 p.m. ET.
