Pelosi 'to announce formal Trump impeachment inquiry' over president's Ukraine call

House Speaker had previously opposed starting inquiry despite pressure from fellow Democrats

(REUTERS)

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, is expected to announce a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump.

She has been consulting with senior colleagues as more fellow Democrats publicly said they supported an investigation which could see the president removed from office.

The talks came as Mr Trump said he would publish the transcript of a controversial phone call, in which he is accused of trying to get the president of Ukraine to smear Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.

Ms Pelosi’s move would be significant because she has consistently resisted pressure from Democratic colleagues to pursue impeachment.

However, the latest allegations against the president over his alleged efforts to involve a foreign power in the 2020 presidential election has seen an increase in party members backing the inquiry. More than 170 of the 235 Democratic members of the House are now thought to support impeachment.

Earlier, Mr Biden said that if Mr Trump did not co-operate with Congress by allowing a whistleblower’s complaint about him to be released, then the former vice-president would also back impeachment.

In a separate development, Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, said that the whisteblower – believed to be a US intelligence officer – could give evidence to Congress as early as this week.

The move by Ms Pelsoi represents nothing less than a gamble.

She has long felt pursuing such a hearing while the 2020 election campaign was gathering pace, could distract voters who to this point have expressed little interest in a lengthy censure probe, especially given Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, lasted two years.

She has feared that seeking the president’s impeachment could act to energise Mr Trump’s supporters.

But it appears Ms Pelosi has calculated the risk of not acting is even greater. A majority of her members in the House now support moving against the president, and she is said to believe the issue of Mr Trump’s apparent misconduct in his phone call to Ukraine’s president, is something the public understands.

She must also be aware of the pressure from her colleagues, who have urged her to seize the moment.