The Democrats’ division over impeaching President Trump erupted Thursday as the House Judiciary Committee confirmed it is conducting an impeachment inquiry while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to discuss the issue with reporters.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, confirmed that a vote to approve “guidelines” for impeachment hearings means the impeachment process is underway.
“Some call this process an impeachment inquiry. Some call it an impeachment investigation,” he said. “There is no legal difference between these terms, and I no longer care to argue about the nomenclature.
“But let me clear up any remaining doubt: The conduct under investigation poses a threat to our democracy. We have an obligation to respond to this threat. And we are doing so.”
Moments later, however, when Pelosi was asked about the issue, she closed down her weekly news conference and walked out.
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the top Republican on the committee, said the Democrats want it both ways.
“My colleagues know very well they don’t have the votes to authorize impeachment proceedings on the House floor, but they want to impeach the president anyway,” Collins said.
“So, they are pretending to initiate impeachment.”
Pelosi has been trying to tamp down talks of impeachment ever since her party’s radicals began the discussion upon Trump’s election, arguing voters don’t like it.
The Washington Examiner reported she tersely told reporters Thursday, “I’m not answering any more questions about a possible inquiry, investigation, and the rest.”
She then walked out.
Among the supporters of impeachment is Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who told cheering supporters on the night of her election last fall she was going to Washington to “impeach the m———-.”
But more moderate Democrats fear their House majority could be at risk because they hold seats in many districts that supported Trump in 2016.
One, Florida Rep. Donna Shalala, blamed the impeachment talk for “sucking the air out of all the good stuff that we’re doing.”
Nadler scheduled the first hearing under the new “impeachment rules” to hear testimony from former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski next week.
“I’m not quite sure what Chairman Nadler meant, because we have not launched a formal impeachment inquiry in the United States Congress,” he said.
“That, in my view, requires a vote of the House. He may consider what he’s doing in his committee, de facto, to be all but an impeachment inquiry that could lead to articles of impeachment, and that’s true. But as to a formal impeachment proceeding, we have not undertaken a formal proceeding.”
Nadler, meanwhile, is on the record stating, “We are telling the court that what we are doing is not just part of normal oversight but part of our Article 1 authority and responsibility to consider all remedies, including the possibility of articles of impeachment.”
Later Thursday, Nadler erupted when his committee discussed gun violence.
The Examiner reported Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, repeatedly pressed Nadler for when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz would be called to testify about his report that found fired FBI Director James Comey repeatedly had violated FBI rules.
Nadler called Jordan “out of order” and shut down the questions entirely.
Jordan has told Fox News he often is asked, “When is somebody going to jail for wrongdoing that took place in the Trump-Russia investigation or even the Clinton investigation?”
