Democrats battle to take back the white house . We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I am wolf blitzer. Youre in the Situation Room. We are following major breaking news. House democrats drop the hammer, launching a formal Impeachment Inquiry as the outrage over the president s ukraine phone call reaches critical mass. Nancy pelosi making the announcement awhile ago, accusing President Trump of betraying the nation by asking ukraine to help them hurt his potential 2020 opponent, joe biden. Tonight, the president is firing back in familiar fashion, calling the impeachment probe a witch hunt. He failed trying to calm the controversy by releasing transcripts of a phone call tomorrow. All this as the person behind the whistleblower complaint that
set the scandal in motion wants to speak directly with congress. The House Intelligence Committee chairman says that could happen as soon as this week. Our correspondents, analysts, guests are standing biy as w
happen very often, it has only happened three times in history that the house of representatives has launched a formal impeachment inquiry, and even though there are very partisan times we are living in, for the speaker of the house who was reluctant to do this, and did make, given where we have been, a pretty fast change in her outcome and approach to do this is incredibly big. and the fact is given where the house democrats are, it is hard to see these six committees, particularly the house judiciary committee, not ending with arlt calls of impeachment and full house vote. jeffrey, weigh in. remember, her words are precise, nancy pelosi, in announcing the opening in her words, opening of an official impeachment inquiry, meaning an investigation.
joining in trying to have the complaint handed over to relevant committees in congress, they re willing to play defense for the president and echo this idea that this is all yet another witch hunt that s politically moutivated by democrats. i think now 160 or 170, maybe more of the democrats have supported at least the opening of a formal impeachment investigation or inquiry into the president of the united states. i suspect the main reason why nancy pelosi didn t want a roll call of the full house of representatives was because she feared she may not get to 218. she didn t want to put pressure on democrats in swing districts that may feel uncomfortable with that kind of vote. that s right, wolf. you don t get to be the first woman speaker of the house if you can t whip and count votes. i suspect, jeffrey makes a good point about the fact there was no full house vote today, i
politically perfeilous. politics be damned might be the bo best argument. saying i understand how bad this is, how hard this is for us. jeffrey, go ahead. about the politics. one fact that s worth pointing out, in the clinton investigation, impeachment inquiry, and in the nixon impeachment inquiry, the full house of representatives took a vote to open the impeachment inquiry. speaker pelosi did not conduct such a vote. she did not force her members to take a vote, she simply announced it herself. i think she has the right to do that, but i think that s indicative of her desire to protect her members from taking votes about impeachment. very important point. and you know, gloria, there was a lot of speculation earlier in the day she might name a special committee, a select committee on
impeachment along the lines of the select committee on watergate, for example, but she made it clear at the end of the statement, there are six committees looking into various aspects of this, all of them are going forward in their own way. that may have had to do with committee chairman not giving up turf, but also the optics of having a select committee would remind you of watergate. and i don t think she wants to sort of go down that route at this particular point. i think jeffrey s point is right. she did not call for a vote on an impeachment inquiry, she just kinds of declared it. and i guess she can do that. but she knows the kind of push back she s going to get. ronna mcdaniel, republican chair woman republican national committee. said it has the fingerprints of the vendetta that smeared against donald trump since elected, pointed out the whistleblower playing the victim card.