WASHINGTON — Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., says there's no impeachment inquiry needed following the release of a memo summarizing President Trump's call with Ukraine in which he prods the country's new leader to investigate Democrat and presidential candidate Joe Biden.
"I am ready to vote on impeachment," Rep. Jayapal said, adding that there are a few committees still putting some "remaining pieces" together. "But what we're seeing now is incredibly serious, incredibly grave."
It's an "absolute crime" for the president to use his power in the way he did, Jayapal said, citing the five-page memo released by the White House Wednesday morning.
According to the memo summarizing the 30-minute call with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump repeatedly prodded Zelensky to work with Rudy Guiliani and the U.S. attorney general to investigate Biden.
Trump told the Ukrainian president "If you can look into it ... it sounds horrible to me." Trump was talking about unsubstantiated allegations that Biden sought to interfere with a Ukrainian prosecutor's investigation of his son, Hunter.
Trump also confirmed that he ordered his staff to freeze nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine a few days before the call.
Trump says he did nothing wrong.
This isn't just about Ukraine, Jayapal said. It's about other countries watching these events unfold and asking themselves, "am I going to get the aid that Congress has appropriated to my country if I don't dig up political dirt for the president?" she said.
Jayapal said what the memo indicates is a "real betrayal of our country," of "our values," and "national security" and "Constitution" by the president.
"This is so clear because it's in the public eye," she said. But it's "certainly the same pattern going back to when Trump was a candidate. But now we're seeing it in real time, unfolding in front of us."
The conversation between Trump and Zelensky is just one part of a whistleblower's complaint made in August. The complaint has been central to an impeachment inquiry announced Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry Tuesday against President Donald Trump, yielding to mounting pressure from fellow Democrats and plunging a deeply divided nation into an election-year clash between Congress and the commander in chief.
The probe focuses partly on whether Trump abused his presidential powers and sought help from a foreign government to undermine Democratic foe Joe Biden and help his own reelection. Pelosi said Tuesday such actions would mark a "betrayal of his oath of office" and declared, "No one is above the law."
For months, the Democratic leader has tried calming the push for impeachment, saying the House must investigate the facts and let the public decide.
Jayapal says the tipping point for Pelosi on an impeachment inquiry may have come as the whistleblower complaint unfolds in real time, opposed to former special counsel Robert Mueller's report which was finally made public after nearly two years.
Though she doesn't have a specific timeline because information is "emerging so quickly," Jayapal says she expects things to start moving "very fast."
