US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday that public hearing in an impeachment enquiry into President Donald Trump could be expected this month.
“I would assume there would be a public hearing in November”, Pelosi said in an interview with Bloomberg.
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She also said she does not know “what the timetable will be” for the inquiry and that they “have not made any decisions on if the president will be impeached.”
The remarks came a day after the Democratic-controlled House approved mostly along party lines a resolution that establishes procedures for public impeachment hearings and the release of deposition transcripts, among other things.
Pelosi initiated the impeachment inquiry into Trump in late September after an anonymous whistleblower raised concerns about the White House’s interactions with Ukraine, including a July 25 phone call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump was alleged to have abused power by using a military aid to pressure Zelensky into investigating former US Vice President Joe Biden, a top-tier 2020 Democratic presidential contender, so as to help his re-election campaign.
“We are prepared for an impeachment to happen,” Grisham said. “Nancy Pelosi has made it very, very clear that the House Democrats are going to vote.”
“I wouldn’t say it is a foregone conclusion, I would say it’s what we’re expecting it, yes,” she added.
The president will be impeached if the House approves any of the articles of impeachment that the Judiciary Committee has recommended by a simple majority vote.
Last month, Trump had described his impeachment as a “lynching” and he managed once again to create a political firestorm around race while frustrating members of his party and drawing condemnation from lawmakers who hold his political fate in their hands.
President Trump had said that witnesses had provided substantial support for allegations that Trump illegally tried to force Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden.
While the White House and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani refused to turn over subpoenaed documents on the Ukraine affair to Congress, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said five witnesses had backed up allegations of misuse of power that could underpin formal impeachment charges.
Trump’s remarks came right after a day White House issued a letter that notified the Democrats of an uncooperative stance of the administration in relation to their efforts to remove the President from office.
“You have designed and implemented your inquiry in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in the letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel.
“This letter is manifestly wrong, and is simply another unlawful attempt to hide the facts of the Trump Administration’s brazen efforts to pressure foreign powers to intervene in the 2020 elections,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Earlier in October, Ukraine’s former president had said that he discussed investments with President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in 2017, but that he never discussed Ukrainian companies with any US official.
(With inputs from agency)