Trump impeachment: Nancy Pelosi decides not to call vote authorising probe
President describes process as ‘witch hunt’
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Your support makes all the difference.Nancy Pelosi has decided to put off holding a vote in the House to back the impeachment probe of Donald Trump being carried out by Democrats.
Mr Trump and the White House have claimed, contrary to what many independent legal experts had said, that Democrats were required to hold a so-called floor vote to approve the impeachment investigation her party announced last month.
It suggested the absence of a vote was one of the reasons the administration had decided not to cooperate with the probe, and had declined to provide either documents or else permit witnesses testify.
Yet, Ms Pelosi had insisted there was no constitutional requirement for her to do so, and said on Thursday she did not currently intend to hold one.
“There is no requirement that we have a vote. So at this time we will not be having a vote,” she said on Capitol Hill, shortly before the party’s fifth debate to help select a challenger to Mr Trump got underway in Ohio.
The decision by Ms Pelosi saves her having to force her members to hold an unnecessary vote on a sensitive and potentially issue.
The plan she outlined last month when she declared the party was moving forward formally with its impeachment probe, was that six committees currently looking into the president would do do under an impeachment umbrella.
The party would then consider the strongest evidence and most likely place it before the House judiciary committee for a vote on whether to impeach the president.
If the committee did do, the matter would move to the floor of the House, which is made up of 435 voting members and who would be asked to vote on whether to impeach the president.
Only a simple majority it required.
Mr Trump recently acknowledged his opponents had sufficient numbers to impeach him in the House, though he hoped Republicans in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required, would protect him, just as Democratic senators did for Bill Clinton in 1998 after he was censured by the lower chamber.
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