Washington, September 24 (WNM/AFP/Reuters) - US Democrats will launch an official Congressional investigation into a possible impeachment of President Donald Trump. This was announced by Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives on Tuesday in Washington.
She justified this by suspecting that Trump, in a telephone conversation with the new Ukrainian president Volodymyr Selenskyj, had linked the release of aid money to the delivery of compromising information about the son of the democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
However, the step is a risky game: the Democrats, with their majority in the House of Representatives, have it in their hands to initiate an impeachment procedure against Trump. Should the announced investigation come to the conclusion that the allegations against Trump are true, the House of Representatives could decide to formally accuse the president - this would be the so-called impeachment.
The decision on a possible removal of Trumps would then lie with the other Congress chamber, the Senate. There Trumps Republicans are in the majority. A two-thirds majority is also needed in the Senate to remove a president from office.
Above all, however, the Biden family's ties could put the democratic candidate under pressure. Biden's agreement with the Democrats has increased after the dispute with Trump. However, there is a danger for the Democrats that Biden's candidacy and perception of his eligibility will be impaired by the possibility of Trump's repeated allegations of corruption, strategists said.
“It could be distracting if the campaign becomes more about the allegations of corruption within the Biden family,” said Donald Green, a political science professor at Columbia University, told Reuters.
So far, there has been no evidence that Biden used his position as vice president to support his son Hunter's business in Ukraine. However, as vice-president himself at an event, Biden admitted that he had put pressure on the former Ukrainian government. He had made the granting of a billion-euro loan conditional on the firing of the head of the Ukrainian corruption investigation - a very unusual demand for a foreign politician. Hunter Biden worked for the Burisma Holding, a company which wanted to exploit natural gas deposits in Ukraine.
Another problem is that most Americans don't understand what the case is about. In recent years there has been little coverage of the interdependence of the Biden family in Ukraine. According to AFP, there have been cases of corruption in the company, Hunter Biden have never been officially prosecuted for the accusations.
Green said it is a risky move if Democrats launch an impeachment inquiry so close to the 2020 election about a conversation that may be interpreted a number of ways.
“I don’t think the typical American knows much about the Ukraine or what President Trump was talking about,” Green said. “If this case is ambiguous, it’s something that can be tarred as a witch hunt.”
The Democrats, however, want to use heavy artillery: Trump committed "treason against his oath of office" and "national security" with his actions, the opposition leader said. He also attacked the "integrity" of the election process in the USA. According to Pelosis, six committees of the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives will jointly investigate the possible impeachment of Trump.
Trump vehemently rejects the accusations made against him because of the telephone call. He described the investigation now announced by the Democrats in the online service Twitter as "garbage" which is spread in the course of a "witch hunt".
Trump had already tweeted before that his telephone conversation with Selenskyj was "completely appropriate". The president announced that he would have a complete and unedited transcript of the conversation published on Wednesday.
According to US media reports, Trump had requested information about Hunter Biden in the phone call.