Skip to main content

Pelosi says public opinion shifting in support of impeachment inquiry

Pelosi, impeachment

AUSTIN, TX: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Saturday that public opinion is now on the side of an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump following the release of new information about his conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Pelosi this week announced her support for an investigation after the surfacing of a whistleblower complaint that said Trump appeared to solicit a political favor from Ukraine’s president aimed at helping him be re-elected next year.

Pelosi for months took a cautious approach in weighing the calls of other Democratic House members to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, which grew louder after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified on July 24 about his probe of Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“In the public, the tide has completely changed; it could change now – who knows – but right now after seeing the complaint and the IG (Inspector General) report and the cavalier attitude the administration had towards it, the American people are coming to a different decision,” Pelosi said at a journalism event hosted by the Texas Tribune news website.

She added that her resistance to holding an impeachment inquiry quickly evolved from urging that fellow Democrats remain cautious of the political fallout ahead of next year’s elections to full steam ahead as details emerged of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine’s leader.

“A president of the United States would withhold military assistance paid for by taxpayers to shake down the leader of another country unless he did him a political favor – that is so, so clear,” Pelosi said.

In a July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelenskiy, the U.S. leader asked his counterpart to launch an investigation of Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

Both Bidens have denied any wrongdoing.

Trump has blasted the impeachment inquiry, arguing that he did nothing wrong and accusing Democrats of launching a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

Lawmakers in the Democratic-led House of Representatives are investigating concerns that Trump’s actions have jeopardized national security and the integrity of U.S. elections.

The impeachment inquiry has cast a new pall over Trump’s presidency just months after he emerged from the shadow cast by Mueller’s investigation.

“If the facts are persuasive to the American people, they may be to some Republicans,” Pelosi said during the event.

Pelosi would not forecast how long it may take for the House to complete any possible impeachment proceedings against Trump.

“It will take as long as the Intelligence Committee needs to follow all the facts,” she said.

Several Democratic presidential candidates attended the three-day event in Austin, including Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Representative Beto O’Rourke, Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, all of whom agreed with Pelosi that the campaign to push Trump from office must focus on policies and not impeachment.

While some polls have shown Americans are split on supporting impeachment, Castro, who served under former President Barack Obama, said he thinks the public will increasingly back the inquiry.

The post Pelosi says public opinion shifting in support of impeachment inquiry appeared first on ARYNEWS.



from ARYNEWS https://ift.tt/2mJiJoZ
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

IT ministry forms panel to review social media rules

ISLAMABAD: While uproar against the new rules to regulate social media continues from various segments of society, including parliamentarians, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and civil society, the information technology ministry on Friday formed a committee to review the rules. The federal cabinet approved the rules on Feb 11, but later after opposition from various quarters, including companies that manage different social media platforms, the prime minister announced that a fresh consultation process would be launched over the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules 2020. The committee formed by the IT ministry is headed by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority Chairman Amir Azeem Bajwa while its members are Eazaz Aslam Dar, additional secretary of IT; Tania Aidrus, member of the Strategic Reforms Imple­mentation Unit, Prime Minister Office; and Dr Arslan Khalid, focal person on digital media at the PM Office. Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

IS confirms Baghdadi’s death, vows revenge

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.—AP BEIRUT: The Islamic State militant group confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a statement on Thursday and named his replacement as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi. “We mourn you ... commander of the faithful,” said Abu Hamza al-Quraishi — presented as the group’s new spokesman — in an audio statement. Baghdadi, who led IS since 2014 and was the world’s most wanted man, was killed in a US special forces raid in Syria’s province of Idlib on Sunday. The group also confirmed the killing in another raid the following day of the group’s previous spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir. The statement said the group’s legislative and consultative body convened after the 48-year-old Iraqi-born jihadist chief’s death. “The Islamic State shura council convened immediately after confirming the martyrdom of Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the elders of the holy warriors agreed” on a replacement, said the seven-minute message. Little is known abou...
Post a Comment
Read more