Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday it’s possible that controversies beyond Ukraine could be part of the impeachment case against President Trump.
House Democrats have recently sought to narrow their impeachment inquiry to the allegations stemming from an intelligence community whistleblower complaint that said Trump tried to pressure Ukraine to initiate politically charged investigations in return for the release of congressionally approved security aid.
{mosads}Trump’s dealings with Ukraine have united nearly all House Democrats around their impeachment probe, though many had previously pushed for impeachment over the president’s efforts to undermine former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference.
Pelosi on Friday emphasized that the decision on articles of impeachment will be up to the committees handling the inquiry. She did not rule out the possibility that the obstruction of justice allegations against Trump in Mueller’s report could come up.
“What we’re talking about now is taking us into a whole other class of objection to what the president has done. And there may be other — there were 11 obstruction of justice provisions in the Mueller report. Perhaps some of them will be part of this,” Pelosi said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. “But again, that will be part of the inquiry, to see where we go.”
Pelosi also told Bloomberg News in a roundtable with editors and reporters on Friday that she expects public hearings will begin this month after several weeks of closed-door depositions with current and former Trump administration officials.
Democrats have been aiming to wrap up the impeachment inquiry by year’s end, or at least before the first presidential primary ballots are cast at the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3.
“We haven’t even made a decision to impeach. This is what an inquiry is about,” Pelosi said.