Nancy Pelosi says she got a call from the White House on Tuesday.
MSNBC reports that according to Pelosi, President Donald Trump called her this week to ask if they could “work something out” regarding the alleged whistleblower complaint against him. But judging by the House speaker’s recent actions, it doesn’t look like a deal materialized.
“Hey, can we do something about this whistleblower complaint? Can we work something out?” Trump said, according to Pelosi.
NBC’s Heidi Przybyla reports that Pelosi’s reply was succinct: “Yes, you can tell your people to obey the law.”
Impeachment looming?
Insinuating that the Trump camp hasn’t “obeyed the law” in the past, Pelosi announced Tuesday that she’s launching an impeachment inquiry into Trump because of the whistleblower complaint. But what did she actually do?
The House Judiciary Committee had already launched an impeachment inquiry, according to Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY). In fact, Nadler has been claiming that impeachment has been happening “informally” since August. Earlier in September, the Judiciary Committee even set rules for an impeachment investigation, according to NBC.
Indeed, all Pelosi really did on Tuesday was take over the existing process. All six committees that were involved in the process are now under her control.
While it is notable that Pelosi has finally thrown her weight behind an impeachment process, it’s really nothing more than an investigation right now. There’s no vote, and when Pelosi made the announcement, Congress had not even seen the whistleblower complaint or the transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president, which is reportedly the topic of the whistleblower’s allegations.
What about that phone call?
Now that the phone call transcript has been released by Trump, Pelosi may be wondering what all the fuss was about.
While Trump did ask Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the ousted prosecutor who then-Vice President Biden has bragged about getting fired from his post, there was no pressure put on Zelensky by Trump and no quid pro quo mentioned in the July 25 call.
Pelosi must see it differently, though. She said after the release that the transcript confirms the need for an impeachment inquiry.
But then, what’s she supposed to say at this point? Oops?
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