The U.S. House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, Tuesday afternoon set into motion a train of events that will likely lead to the impeachment of President Donald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors within the year.
Democrats officially launched an impeachment inquiry into allegations Trump coerced Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden (a Democrat), and Biden's son, Hunter, in exchange for releasing U.S. military aid to that country.
Joe Biden is one of Trump's top rivals for the presidency in 2020 and stands a good chance of becoming the Democrats' candidate for president.
The road to impeachment was triggered by a whistleblower complaint saying Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden. Trump officials made matters worse by withholding the complaint from the House despite a law mandating they do so.
Trump then forced Democrats to act on impeachment by admitting he had indeed talked to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky after initially denying the conversation ever took place.
The announcement of the impeachment inquiry was made by House Majority Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
"The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of the President's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections," said Pelosi.
"Therefore, today, I am announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry."
She then directed the six committees in the House that will be involved in the impeachment process to move forward with the impeachment investigation.
"The President must be held accountable," she asserted. "No one is above the law."
At least 196 Democrats out of the 235 in the House as of Tuesday evening are calling for an impeachment inquiry, which is the first step in a three-step process to remove a U.S. president from office. Under U.S. laws, it is up to the House to impeach a U.S. president but it is left to the Senate to convict or remove a president from office.
In an impeachment proceeding, the House Judiciary Committee investigates and recommends articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives. The House can effectively impeach Trump with a simple majority vote.
Since the Senate is controlled by Republicans, there is next to no chance of Trump being removed from office despite his impeachment by the House. The same scenario occurred to former President Bill Clinton who was impeached by the House but not punished with removal from office by the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
Pelosi's support of the impeachment process is a marked turnaround from her former stand against it. Political analysts said her about-face was triggered by Trump's admission he discussed Biden and his son in his phone call with Zelensky.
Following Trump's admission, dozens of House Democrats announced their support for an impeachment inquiry over the past 48 hours.
Pelosi also supports a nonbinding resolution disapproving of the Trump administration's refusal to release the whistleblower complaint.
"Allegations that the President of the United States sought to enlist a foreign government to interfere in our democratic process by investigating one of his political rivals -- and may have used the withholding of Congressionally-appropriated foreign assistance days earlier as intimidation -- are deeply alarming," said Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in a statement Tuesday.
Before Democrats announced the impeachment investigation, however, Trump authorized the release of a complete transcript of his phone call with Zelensky. Democrats have called to see the full complaint, saying it will reveal key details about what alarmed the whistleblower not contained in the transcript.
