Impeachment for the "traitor". US Congress starts the procedure

The investigation into the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump can now enter the "public" phase, which means open hearings to the public and an even stronger echo of the media than it has had so far. The US House of Representatives today approved a resolution that sets the rules to start the second phase of the investigation, characterized by public hearings after about five weeks of interrogation behind closed doors. A procedural vote which, however, the New York Times does not hesitate to define as "historic", both because it is only the third time in modern history that the Chamber votes on the impeachment investigation for a current president, and because this move highlights the level " toxic ”of toxic political polarization that is the background to the whole affair.

The resolution passed with 232 votes in favor and 196 against. Two democratic deputies voted against together with the Republicans, an independent deputy voted in favor with the Democrats. Republicans, under strong pressure from the president, opposed unanimously. A few minutes after the vote, on Twitter, Trump echoed what has now become his mantra against accusations: "It's the biggest witch hunt in American history!" His spokesman called the impeachment proceeding "a farce," "a patently partisan attempt to destroy the president."

"President Donald Trump has betrayed his oath, and we are defending the US Constitution," said House speaker Nancy Pelosi before the procedural vote. "A new phase of the investigation will now open, a public phase in which American citizens will be able to see with their own eyes and feel with their ears how the facts are," added Pelosi. "At stake – he continued – is our democracy".

It was she, last September 24, who decided to launch her party in the tortuous way of impeachment, that is to say the indictment of the president, following the revelations about a call of July 25 between Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in which the tycoon asked him to investigate his rival Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter's business in Ukraine. This is why the Dems accuse him of abuse of power for personal purposes, since Joe Biden is among the strongest candidates in the Democratic primaries ahead of the 2020 presidential elections. The Republican, for his part, repeats that his conversation with Zelensky was has been "blameless" and is said to have been targeted by a "coup d'etat".

So far the Democrats have already listened to a dozen diplomats and advisers from the White House. According to the elements filtered so far from the closed-door hearings, mostly river auditions, ambassadors and senior officials have sometimes given testimonies heavy for the White House. In particular they revealed the efforts deployed for months by people close to the president, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, on the sidelines of official diplomacy channels, to convince Kiev to provide embarrassing information about Joe Biden.

Tim Morrison, an advisor of the White House specializing in Russia, arrived this morning to be heard in turn. He would have witnessed the pressure exerted by Trump on Kiev. According to other people who have been heard, the tycoon with Zelensky would have put an important US military aid on the table. Morrison, who worked with former national security adviser John Bolton (who was called to testify on 7 November but could refuse to do so) resigned on the eve of this hearing, a senior White House official said.

The resolution approved today by the House, in essence, outlines the rights and procedures that will guide the process from here on out, including the public presentation of the evidence and the space in which Trump and his legal team can organize a defense. But its meaning is deeper: after five weeks of private investigation of the facts, an almost completely unified democratic caucus has signaled that, despite the Republican opposition, it now has enough confidence in the seriousness of the facts underlying the Trump relations with the Ukraine to support a public impeachment process.