Flickr / Gage Skidmore
Update: The vote is in. Pelosi and the Democrats won 232-196 vote (see below).
Democrats will today vote on a resolution to formalize the impeachment proceedings against President Trump and set out guidelines for how the process will take place from now on. The vote will undermine a key talking point by Republicans, who have repeatedly decried the absence of a vote on Impeachment.
The lack of a vote has had many crying that the proceedings are illegitimate.
“Donald J. Trump is an absolutely historic President already, in less than 3 years in office. His record is there for everyone to look at & to examine and compare. This is an illegitimate effort to overthrow a President, not a formal Impeachment inquiry.” @LouDobbs Thank you Lou
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019
So, on Tuesday the House Rules Committee released the resolution that lawmakers will vote on today.
The resolution will:
- Allow for public impeachment hearings
- Allow the release of deposition transcripts
- Outline the Judiciary Committee’s role in considering potential articles of impeachment.
Will this move appease the Republicans? Likely not. They have been hypocritical about the entire process already including complaining about the Democrats following rules that they wrote.
Several Republican lawmakers have already participated in publicity stunts like storming into the secure room where the Impeachment testimonies are being held.
Here you can see Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) lamenting about being denied entrance into the SCIF:
You’re not on any committees tho 🤔 https://t.co/TP5KrYDnTD
— Dara Does Deep State (@daralynn13) October 30, 2019
He isn’t the first to complain about being shut out of the process, yet ones that are actually invited choose not to attend. The same day Mooney posted his video, Representative Ted Yoho (R-FL) plainly stated that he hasn’t “gone to those” depositions because of his “other responsibilities in the House.”
HUGE
GOP Rep. @TedYoho hasn't attended a single deposition even though he's allowed to be in the room
He says he has "other responsibilities in the House." pic.twitter.com/NW3nbLkhU6
— Zac Petkanas (@Zac_Petkanas) October 29, 2019
The vote will allow for public hearings
The resolution will allow lawmakers to question witnesses for up to 90 minutes, split 45 minutes between each party. It also “permits staff counsels to follow their lines of inquiry to their ends,” rather than the typical five-minute rounds lawmakers have in hearings.
It can be expected that the hypocrisy won’t end because the Republicans will just find a new angle and keep heaping it on.
So the White House demands that there be a formal impeachment vote.
A judge essentially rules there doesn’t need to be one
Pelosi decides to hold one anyway
And now WH says because she’s holding a vote everything done so far is “irreversibly illegitimate”
— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 28, 2019
UPDATE: The resolution to formalize the Impeachment inquiry has been approved in a 232-196 vote. All of the democrats minus two, Rep Jeff Van Drew (NJ) and Collin Peterson (MN), voted in favor of the resolutions. All of the Republicans voted against it.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) presided over the proceedings. She said, “It isn’t about partisanship, it’s about patriotism.”