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House Passes Impeachment Resolution on Stark Partisan Lines
Move marks first significant vote since probe began into Trump’s call for Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi presides over the House on Thursday as it passes a resolution on
the impeachment inquiry on a vote of 232-196.
Photo:
tom brenner/Reuters
By
Natalie Andrews and
Vivian Salama
WASHINGTON—The House passed a resolution almost entirely along
party lines to initiate the public phase of an inquiry into President
Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, setting a blueprint for the fourth
presidential impeachment investigation in U.S. history.
The 232-196 vote underscored the sharp partisan divide in
Washington over impeachment. All Democrats but two supported the measure
while all Republicans rejected it. The House’s one independent,
Rep. Justin Amash
of Michigan, voted yes. Though the move will make the
investigation more public, including the likelihood of televised
hearings, no time frame was given for when that will happen. The
resolution authorizes the House Intelligence Committee to release
transcripts from past closed-door interviews with witnesses and gives
more power to Republicans, including the right to call their own
witnesses, though those requests are subject to approval by Democrats. “If
we don’t have a system of checks and balances, we might as well all
just elect a president and go home,” House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi
(D., Calif.) said ahead of the vote. She waved away GOP
complaints, saying: “These rules are fairer than anything that has gone
before in terms of an impeachment proceeding.” The two Democrats who opposed the measure were Reps.
Jeff Van Drew
of New Jersey and
Collin Peterson
of Minnesota, who both represent districts Mr. Trump won in 2016. GOP
lawmakers have kept a united front in objecting to the impeachment
process, even as some have criticized Mr. Trump’s efforts to press
Ukraine to launch investigations related to the 2016 U.S. election and
Democratic rival
Joe Biden.
None have said they believe Mr. Trump has committed an
impeachable offense.
After the vote, House Republicans’ campaign arm sent moving
boxes to about 20 vulnerable Democrats’ offices, which caused Capitol
Police concern. Republicans signaled they plan to make impeachment a
line of attack in next year’s congressional elections. “The new
socialist democrats…they will be voting away their majority,” said
Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, chairman of the Republican campaign arm. Democrats,
meantime, are buoyed by polling that shows growing support for
impeachment. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 55% of
participants said Congress should take up the Ukraine matter, with 31%
supporting the House impeachment inquiry and 24% saying enough evidence
exists already for lawmakers to remove Mr. Trump from office. Democrats in competitive districts framed the vote Thursday as moving the investigation into the public sphere. “I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican, why do you not want to get to the truth,” said
Rep. Cheri Bustos
of Illinois, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The Intelligence Committee is expected to refer its findings to the House Judiciary Committee. The
resolution passed Thursday will allow Mr. Trump and his counsel to
attend all Judiciary Committee hearings, cross-examine witnesses and
make closing presentations. Republicans and the White House criticized
the resolution because it doesn’t give the president these rights while
the investigation is run by the Intelligence Committee, as it currently
is. Democrats argue this is because the probe remains in its
information-gathering stage. White House spokeswoman
Stephanie Grisham
slammed Democrats after the vote, accusing them of engaging in a
“a blatantly partisan attempt to destroy the president.” Mr. Trump’s campaign manager,
Brad Parscale,
said voters “will punish Democrats who support this farce and President Trump will be easily re-elected.” In
the private depositions the House has conducted, Republicans and
Democrats on the three committees of jurisdiction have had equal time to
question witnesses, but lawmakers not on the panels have been excluded. Conducting
witness interviews behind closed doors has been common in high-profile
investigations run by Republicans and Democrats. While not impeachment
inquiries, under GOP leadership the Senate and House intelligence
committees conducted separate reviews of Russian meddling in the 2016
election, largely interviewing witnesses in private. The GOP-run House
also conducted an inquiry into the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi,
Libya, largely behind closed doors.
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Timeline: Interactions Between Trump's Camp and Ukraine
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Timeline: Interactions Between Trump's Camp and Ukraine
President Trump's efforts to persuade Ukraine to investigate
his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, have set off an
impeachment inquiry by House Democrats. WSJ's Shelby Holliday lays out a
timeline of interactions between the president's inner circle and
Ukrainian officials. Photo Composite: Laura Kammermann/The Wall Street
Journal
In the latest witness testimony, Tim Morrison, who oversaw
National Security Council policy on Europe and Russia until he left the
job Wednesday, said Thursday a U.S. diplomat told him a hold on U.S. aid
to Ukraine was tied to efforts to push Kyiv to investigate Mr. Biden
and his son, backing testimony of earlier witnesses in the House
impeachment inquiry.
The Ukraine Witnesses
Oct. 3: Kurt Volker, former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, testifies and hands over text
messages with other State Department officials that showed officials
attempting to use a potential meeting between Mr. Trump and his
Ukrainian counterpart as leverage to press Kyiv to investigate Joe
Biden.
Oct. 11: Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testifies that Mr. Trump sought
for over a year to remove her and that his allies, including Rudy
Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, targeted her in a “concerted
campaign.”
Oct. 14: Fiona Hill, President Trump’s former top Russia adviser, testifies that she and other
White House officials grew so alarmed by the administration’s efforts
to push Ukraine to open certain investigations that they raised
objections with a White House lawyer.
Oct. 17: Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, criticizes President Trump over his efforts to enlist Ukraine
in investigating a political rival and says he and other U.S. officials
were “disappointed” by the president’s directive to work with Mr.
Giuliani on Ukraine matters.[Statement]
Oct. 29: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the director of European affairs at the National Security Council, says he had concerns about Mr. Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine, notably the request to investigate the Bidens. [Statement]
Oct. 30:
Catherine Croft, who served at State as special adviser for Ukraine,
says Mr. Trump repeatedly described Ukraine as corrupt while deciding
whether to provide the country with Javelin missile systems. [Statement] Christopher Anderson, who was a special adviser to Mr. Volker, the former U.S. envoy for Ukraine negotiations, says Mr. Bolton warned U.S. diplomats in June that Rudy Giuliani could pose an obstacle to improving relations with Ukraine. [Statement]
Oct. 31: Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s Russia and Europe director.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Adam Schiff
(D., Calif.) told CNN that Democrats expect to begin releasing
transcripts of depositions as early as next week, but didn’t provide
other details about when his panel would take steps to make the
Democrats’ work more public. While those decisions are currently in Mr.
Schiff’s hands, the Judiciary Committee will eventually hold its own
public hearings as it weighs the evidence and decides how to incorporate
the materials into what is widely expected to be articles of
impeachment. House Judiciary Committee Chairman
Jerrold Nadler
(D., N.Y.) said he didn’t know how much time his committee would
need to do its own work, but he said Mr. Trump was entitled to more
rights once the impeachment proceedings shifted to his committee. “It’s not the initial, fact-finding stage, and it’s proper that the president have more recourse at that point,” he said. Mr.
Schiff has said the lack of White House cooperation will be considered
obstruction and additional evidence “of the wrongfulness of the
president’s underlying misconduct.” Refusal by officials to comply with
subpoenas could be included in the articles of impeachment, as it was
for President
Richard Nixon.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Do you expect that the more public
phase of the House inquiry will persuade lawmakers in either party to
change their positions on whether President Trump should be impeached?
Join the conversation below.
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