The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi announced on Tuesday that the House would begin a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump.
According to Pelosi, Trump betrayed his oath of office and the nation’s security in seeking to enlist a foreign power for his own political gain, NYTimes reports.
“The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the Constitution,” she said after emerging from a meeting of House Democrats in the basement of the Capitol. Mr. Trump, she said, “must be held accountable — no one is above the law.”
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said in a statement today he is “grateful to Speaker Pelosi” for opening a formal impeachment inquiry, CNN reports.
“We all must come to terms with what we face: a lawless president who has obstructed justice and undermined our democracy by inviting a foreign power to intervene in 2016, and who is doing it again in 2020,” O’Rourke said.
See his full statement:
“I am grateful to Speaker Pelosi for opening an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
For more than two years, even as I was running for Senate in Texas, I have been clear that I support impeachment. We all must come to terms with what we face: a lawless president who has obstructed justice and undermined our democracy by inviting a foreign power to intervene in 2016, and who is doing it again in 2020.
This is a defining moment for our country. I believe our nation will rise to it — but only if we stop worrying about polls and start doing what’s right. Many are concerned that impeachment will further tear this country apart. I believe the opposite — that this process can be what finally begins to unite this nation once again. Because before we are anything else, we are all Americans first. And if we believe no one is above the law, if we believe our democracy is worth defending — from enemies foreign and domestic — then we must impeach President Trump.
At this defining moment, history is calling on us to do the right thing, and it is on each and every one of us to save this democracy before it’s too late.”
At issue are allegations that Mr. Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to open a corruption investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son.
The conversation is said to be part of a whistle-blower complaint that the Trump administration has withheld from Congress.