WASHINGTON (CN) – The House of Representatives brought President Donald Trump one step closer to facing impeachment Thursday as lawmakers voted 232-196, split on party lines, in favor of a resolution that outlines precisely how the impeachment inquiry will unfold in the coming weeks and months.
Just the last 37 days have seen a litany of depositions take place behind closed doors at a rapid clip as lawmakers on the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees interviewed one Trump administration official after the other about the president’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky.
For Democrats who will have a hard fight to move articles of impeachment from the House and to the Senate, transparency and accountability now are key.
“I support this resolution because it’s indefensible that any official demand of an ally, and one depending on our support in an existential struggle with Russia, to investigate his political adversaries,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said during debate on the House floor Thursday. “No person, Republican or Democrat should be permitted to jeopardize American’s security and reputation for self-serving purposes.”
Representative Tom Cole, the ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee, blasted Democrats as unfair to the president and motivated by a wish to take due process out of the inquiry.
“This Congress should have the right to review the records that are produced but the majority rejected that,” the Oklahoma congressman said. “We offered an amendment with rules that would allow for the participation of the president and his counsel on matters by the Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees, but the majority rejected that.”
No transcript of the July 25 call has been made public and to date the White House has only released a summary. But testimony from officials with firsthand knowledge of the call, like Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, did little to help the president’s defense that the call with Zelensky was “perfect” and never featured a threat to withhold military aid lest Ukraine launch a probe into former Vice President Joe Biden, Biden’s son Hunter and Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy firm where Hunter formerly served as a board member.
Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, told lawmakers the ellipses in the White House summary of the transcript left out mentions of the Bidens and Burisma. That testimony also traced the cover-up all the way up to one of the White House’s own lawyers, John Eisenberg, according to reports published late Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the confidential hearing.
Eisenberg is said to have gotten wind about the lieutenant colonel’s concerns about the call, then taken the transcript and housed it on a highly classified server where fewer people could access it. The lawyer is expected to be called for testimony on Nov. 4 but it is unclear if he will cooperate.