Pelosi Says House Will Vote This Week on Resolution to Formalize Impeachment Inquiry | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Talk about timing.

    Just a day after President Donald Trump announced to the nation that U.S. forces and others had found and presided over the demise of the leader of ISIS - the leader of the extremist terror organization - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Monday that the House of Representatives would vote this week on a resolution to formalize the current impeachment inquiry into Trump's activities related to a phone call on July 25 that he had with the president of Ukraine.

    In a letter sent to Democratic House lawmakers, Pelosi - as Fox News and other outlets noted on Monday - said the resolution "affirms the ongoing, existing investigation" and "establishes the procedure" for future steps in the process.

    "We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives," Pelosi also said.

    Pelosi previously had said that such a move - a vote on a formal inquiry - was not necessary.

    And Republicans called her out for her "backtracking":

It’s been 34 days since Nancy Pelosi unilaterally declared her impeachment inquiry.

Today’s backtracking is an admission that this process has been botched from the start.

We will not legitimize the Schiff/Pelosi sham impeachment.

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) October 28, 2019

    It may be, as various analysts have suggested, that Pelosi is keeping her eye on the timeline for the 2020 election, with the first primaries coming up in early 2020, just several months away at this point.

    Up to now, so much of the impeachment push up to this point has been "secret," suggested Ari Fleisher on Monday evening on Fox News' "Special Report."

    And that is not usually how this process is conducted. "Fairness is a fundamental American virtue," he said.

    It may also be that there is an effort to take any focus away from Trump's significant foreign policy achievement of the weekend - and take back the offense in Washington, D.C.

    "Fox News has learned the vote will take place Thursday on the House floor," the outlet noted.

    "It is not an actual article of impeachment, but rather a resolution that sets process ground rules."