Nancy Pelosi pulls trigger on articles of impeachment

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi holds a news conference about Democratic legislative priorities and impeachment inquiry plans at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., October 2, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Declaring that President Donald Trump has forced Democrats to act, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Thursday morning for articles of impeachment to be drafted against him.

“Today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment,” Pelosi declared Thursday, referring to House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat.

Pelosi’s five-minute address to the nation Thursday morning was delivered in a somber monotone as she declared that the facts of the Ukraine scandal “are uncontested.” Most of the speech was spent citing Founding Fathers.

A couple of hours later Pelosi met with reporters and took questions for about 10 minutes in which she called the President a coward, cruel, and in denial, based on his political policies for matters such as addressing gun violence, DREAMERS, and climate crisis. But she insisted the impeachment will not be about his policies, and that those are for the elections to decide. She insisted she does not hate Trump, and prays for him “all the time.”

She declined to talk about what might be included in articles of impeachment, insisting that would be for committee chairs to decide as they draft articles of impeachment. She clarified that not just Nadler, but other chairs of key committees would be involved.

“The president abused his power for his own personal, political benefit at the expense of our national security by withholding military aid and a crucial oval office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival,” she said.

That statement summed up the Democrats’ view of what came from the hearings of the House Intelligence Committee which wrapped up last week and concluded with a 300-page report Monday. She also referenced the lone hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Wednesday, citing the testimony from constitutional law scholars who, in Pelosi’s summary, declared Trump’s actions to be “a profound violation of the public trust.”

“The President’s actions have seriously violated the Constitution, especially when he says and acts upon the belief, ‘Article II says I can do whatever I want.’ No. His wrongdoing strikes at the very heart of our Constitution, the separation of powers, three co-equal branches, each a check and balance on the other, a republic, if we can keep it, said Benjamin Franklin,” Pelosi said.

“Our democracy is what is at stake. The President leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election, for his own benefit. The President has engaged in abuse of power, undermining our national security, and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections,” Pelosi said. “His actions are in defiance of the vision of our founders and the oath of office that he takes to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

In her question-and-answer session she said Ukraine is only the location of where Trump’s impeachable offenses played out, but that the matter is not about Ukraine.

“This isn’t about Ukraine. This is about Russia,” Pelosi said. “Who benefited by our withholding of that military assistance? Russia. It’s about Russia. Russia is invading eastern Ukraine. Over 10,000 people have died, now maybe 13,000, some of them in the absence of our conveying that military assistance that was voted in a bipartisan way by the Congress of the United States.

“Our adversary in this is Russia. All roads lead to [Vladimir] Putin,” she said.

Pelosi repeatedly said she sees a constitutional obligation to pursue impeachment and insisted that it was not about politics, but about a President who showed, in her words, “a complete disregard” for the Constitution.

“So we’re not going to say, well, we would honor the oath of office but… but what? He’s the one who is dividing the country on this. We are honoring the Constitution of the United States,” she said.

First to respond on Trump’s behalf was his reelection campaign manager, Brad Parscale.

“We are less than a year away from Election Day 2020 and Democrats can’t possibly explain to the American people why they want to take the decision of who should be president out of the hands of voters,” Parscale said in a written statement. “But impeaching the President has always been their goal, so they should just get on with it so we can have a fair trial in the Senate and expose The Swamp for what it is. Speaker Pelosi, Chairman [Adam] Schiff, and Hunter Biden should testify, and then we can get back to the business of our country.”

Other responses quickly came in via Twitter.

Tweeted Democratic U.S. Rep Val Demings of Orlando, who has seats on both the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees:

“The president abused his power. The president jeopardized our national security. The president on multiple occasions obstructed justice. The decisions we make today have the potential to affect us for generations to come. #DefendOurDemocracy”

Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Fort Walton Beach, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee:

“If Dems were not trying to impeach @POTUS for his Ukraine call, they would be trying to impeach him for something else. Their relentless and obsessive hatred of  @POTUS has completely crippled their ability to govern and to deliver bipartisan solutions for the American people.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch of Boca Raton, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee:

“This morning Speaker Pelosi asked Chairman Nadler to proceed with articles of impeachment.

“We will work to fulfill a solemn duty under our Constitution to #DefendOurDemocracy & protect the framework that ensures government power lies with American people, not any one president.”