By Tomi Simmons
The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, announced a formal impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24, 2019.
“Today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry,” said Pelosi, “The President must be held accountable. No one is above the law.”
A whistle-blower report was released claiming that President Trump asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and how they were conducting business in Ukraine. The report claimed that Trump tried to withhold information and made phone calls with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. In addition, a transcript was released of the phone call between President Zelensky and President Trump where he asks for an investigation of the Bidens. President Trump encouraged President Zelensky to contact Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to follow through on investigations. There is speculation that President Trump threatened to withhold military funding if the investigation did not happen.
On Oct. 6, 2019, the lawyers representing the whistle-blower, released that they are also representing a second whistle-blower. The second whistle-blower claims to have first hand knowledge on the report.
The impeachment process has several procedures to forgo before a president can be removed from office. In order to be impeached, a president has to be investigated by six house committees of which they then have to submit their evidence to the House Judiciary Committee for the case of impeachment.
Steps to impeachments are:
> Once there is evidence that can be considered wrongdoing by the country, the house will vote on impeachment.
> If a majority of 51% votes on impeachment, the president is impeached. (That does not mean removal from office.)
> Once it goes through the House, then the Senate votes on whether the president should be removed from office. If two-thirds of the senate vote yes then the president is removed and the vice president becomes president.
On the other side, if there is insufficient evidence of wrongdoing according to the House, then the president will not be impeached. If the president is impeached and the Senate does not have a majority vote then the president will not be removed from office. No United States President has been removed from office through this process.
