A coalition of 40 American conservative groups has submitted an ethics complaint against US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging the Office of Congressional Ethics to launch a probe into her alleged “misconduct” in “weaponising” the impeachment inquiry and using it as “a weapon of partisan political battle”, the Hill reports.
“In launching her 'official' impeachment inquiry without benefit of a vote of the full House of Representatives and without indicating anything remotely qualifying as 'treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors' that is the subject of the inquiry, Speaker Pelosi has weaponized impeachment”, said the letter, as quoted by the media outlet.
“If she now understands that before going any further, the full House of Representatives must make its impeachment inquiry legitimate by the casting of votes, she is tacitly admitting that what came before is illegitimate”, the letter continued.
The coalition, which is headed by Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots Action, concluded that the impeachment inquiry launched against US President Donald Trump on 24 September was unconstitutional, while also slamming today’s vote on the resolution, which is supposed to set the next steps in the probe.
“She [Pelosi] and her Democratic colleagues are using the impeachment process as a weapon of partisan political battle, rather than as the means to defend the Constitution our Framers meant it to be", the statement from the coalition read.
The development comes following the House Democrats introducing a resolution on 29 October that was supposed to formalise the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, which is based on his 25 July phone conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky, amid Republican complaints that the ongoing probe lacked legitimacy and was being conducted out of the public eye.
On Thursday, the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives debated and voted to support the eight-page document, which outlines the next steps in the impeachment inquiry. Republican representatives objected to the resolution, continuing to call it an improperly conducted farce.
The impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump was launched on 24 September, based on a whistleblower complaint claiming Trump’s phone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky was an abuse of power as he had allegedly pressured the Ukrainian head of state to investigate potential corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Donald Trump vehemently denied any wrongdoing, slamming the inquiry as another “witch hunt”, while Zelensky also denied being “pressured” on the issue, noting that the only person who could pressure him is his young son.