Categories: Non classé

House begins Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he departs on travel to Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas following back-to-back mass shootings in the cities, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., August 7, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque - RC16F37176D0

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives began a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump over allegations that he pressured a foreign power to damage his political rival Joe Biden.

Democrats accuse President Trump of improperly pressuring the Ukrainian president to undermine Mr Biden.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared the inquiry after a closed-door gathering with Democratic lawmakers, stating Trump’s actions threatened national security and infringed the U.S. Constitution.

“The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law,” said Pelosi, who for months had been reluctant to embrace an impeachment effort.

Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, followed up with a statement that Democrats’ “attacks on the President and his agenda are not only partisan and pathetic, they are in dereliction of their Constitutional duty”.

If the inquiry proceeds forward the House of Representatives will vote on any charges and, with the Democrats in the majority, the vote would possibly be carried – making Mr Trump the third president in US history to have been impeached.

This is not the first time that presidents were impeached , in December 1998 the House voted to impeach Bill Clinton before being cleared two months later by the house of the senate, the only other president to be impeached, Andrew Johnson in 1868, was also acquitted by the Senate.