Kane Dane
AUSTIN, Texas — Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in Texas to cap the most crucial week in her tenure as the leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Saturday Democrats will push ahead with the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump regardless of any political implications.
“It doesn’t matter,” Pelosi said in the wrap-up occasion of a weekend festival to politicians and journalists. “Our primary duty is to the Constitution.”
Pelosi, a California Democrat who reclaimed the gavel at the House after her celebration seized nearly all in the 2018 November elections, spoke just blocks away from the Texas Capitol in the festival set by the Texas Tribune.
In a dialogue with Tribune CEO Evan Smith, Pelosi said the decision to move ahead with the possible impeachment was dictated from the president’s actions.
“This is a sad time for our country,” Pelosi said. “There is no pleasure in this.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during an interview at The Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, in Austin, Texas. (Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP) (Photo: Nick Wagner, AP)
Pelosi said her ancient hesitance to move ahead with impeachment was since the facts were insufficient until a whistleblower brought to light that a telephone conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
In that conversation, a rough transcript published by the White House after the whistleblower’s concerns were made known showed Trump seeking politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I think right now, there is a coverup of the coverup,” she said.
Trump, meanwhile, has insisted there was nothing incorrect about the telephone and dismissed talk of impeachment as”a witch hunt.”
Pelosi also said she would enable the House Intelligence Committee to analyze the details without hindrance.
Asked about Texas’ role in the upcoming 2024 elections, Pelosi said the country is equally in play and vital for the Democrats.
“That is it,” she said. “Texas is our hope for the future. I am not just talking about (for) Democrats. I am talking about our country and the world.”
She declined to Select a favorite in the Democratic presidential primaries or in the race for the U.S. Senate for the right to fight Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.
Pelosi did, but said she would support House Democrats being challenged in their primaries.
Pelosi, who had been speaker at the final decades of President George W. Bush’s administration and during the initial couple of years under President Barack Obama, said impeachment proceedings won’t depend on support of House Republicans.
She added, could it be discouraged by the fact that the GOP controls the Senate, making real removal from office unlikely.
“If the facts are persuasive to the American people,” she said,”maybe they will be on the Republicans.”
