The US House of Representatives decided to vote, Thursday, for the first time in plenary a resolution formalizing the investigation to dismiss the president and authorizing public hearings.
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The indictment of Donald Trump will take a decisive step, Thursday, October 31, with a first vote of the House of Representatives. After having rejected it for a long time, recalling that such a vote was not obligatory under the Constitution to launch investigations, the speaker (Speaker) Democrat House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (California), changed her mind on Monday.
In a letter to her Democrat majority colleagues in the House, she said that the resolution, which will be put to the vote, is intended to strengthen the ongoing investigation by three committees, including "Requests for documents, subpoenas for witnesses" and any other procedure deemed necessary.
The text will also specify the procedure to follow "For hearings open to the American people", ie public, and authorize the publication "Transcripts of depositions" already collected. Finally, he will present the steps that could eventually lead to a formal vote of indictment. It would then return to the Senate, where the Republicans are in the majority, to decide on an impeachment which must collect a qualified majority, a hypothesis for the unlikely time.
Nancy Pelosi's turnaround
The current procedure was formally opened on 24 September by a solemn declaration of the speaker. Donald Trump is suspected of having abused his office for personal purposes. He is accused of having frozen aid to Ukraine for Kiev to open investigations against his Democratic opponents. All started with the reporting of a whistleblower after an alarming telephone conversation between the president and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on 25 July.
Nancy Pelosi's turnaround is to reverse Donald Trump's defense strategy. Overwhelmed so far by the pace imposed by the Democrats, the White House has so far focused its criticism on a procedure found to be inconsistent with the two previous indictments, those of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
