Patrick Martin
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday afternoon the beginning of a formal impeachment inquiry directed at Donald Trump. The investigations currently being conducted by six separate House committees will now be funneled through the Speaker’s office to determine whether articles of impeachment should be drawn up against the US president.
The action marks a significant escalation in the conflict within the US ruling elite between two right-wing factions: the Democrats, aligned with sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, and the Trump White House, which is turning to ever-more personalist and dictatorial forms of rule, based on fascistic appeals to the military, border patrol and the police.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., reads a statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The immediate occasion for the move towards impeachment is the revelation that Trump sought to browbeat the Ukrainian government into reopening an investigation into the activities of Hunter Biden, son of a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Like all the moves taken by the Democratic Party against Trump since he took office, the impetus for the latest action comes from the intelligence agencies. An intelligence officer “whistleblower,” as yet unidentified, filed a complaint against Trump August 12 over his phone call to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on July 25, as well as other unspecified actions.
The whistleblower complaint was accepted as “credible” and “urgent” by Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, a Trump appointee from the ranks of career federal prosecutors. Atkinson sought to inform Congress of the complaint, as required by law, but he was blocked by his boss, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who consulted with the Justice Department and the White House.
The fact of the complaint—but not its actual text—was leaked to the press and reported to Congress, touching off a series of media reports documenting Trump’s blatant effort to use American military aid as a lever to assist his own reelection campaign. Trump ordered $391 million in aid to Ukraine held up while he was pressuring Zelensky to reopen a corruption investigation against a gas oligarch in Ukraine who placed Hunter Biden on the board of his company while Joe Biden was US vice president.
Trump admitted Sunday that he had raised the Biden investigation in the call to Zelensky, which he pronounced “perfect.” He then declared Tuesday, under mounting political pressure, that he would release the transcript of the July 25 call today. In an indication of some weakening of Trump’s congressional support, the Republican-controlled Senate voted unanimously the same day to seek the full, unredacted text of the whistleblower complaint.
In her brief public statement on seeking the formal impeachment inquiry, Pelosi cited her own 25 years as a congressional defender of the American intelligence establishment, going back to her years on the House Intelligence Committee before she became Democratic Party leader in the House. She declared Trump guilty of “betrayal” of his oath of office and his constitutional responsibilities, and she demanded that Maguire hand over the whistleblower report by Thursday or be found in violation of the law.
As late as Sunday, Pelosi was stalling on an impeachment inquiry. She sent out a letter to every member of the House of Representatives warning that Trump’s continuing refusal to supply documents and produce witnesses demanded by Congress could lead to a “new stage” of the House investigations into his administration.
The tipping point was apparently reached on Monday evening when seven freshmen Democratic representatives, all of them veterans of the military-intelligence apparatus, issued a joint demand for impeachment in the form of an op-ed column published by the Washington Post.
The seven include six representatives from the group the World Socialist Web Site has labelled the “CIA Democrats.” Two of them are actual ex-CIA agents, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. Four are former military officers: Elaine Luria of Virginia, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Jason Crow of Colorado.
The statement from the seven identifies them as “veterans of the military and of the nation’s defense and intelligence agencies” concerned by “unprecedented allegations against President Trump.” The statement continues: “To uphold and defend our Constitution, Congress must determine whether the president was indeed willing to use his power and withhold security assistance funds to persuade a foreign country to assist him in an upcoming election. If these allegations are true, we believe these actions represent an impeachable offense.”
The seven were joined by former CIA Director John Brennan—the overseer of widespread torture and illegal spying under Bush and Obama—who cited their statement in a cable television interview Tuesday and joined them in calling for Trump’s impeachment.
The line-up of Pelosi, Brennan and the CIA Democrats gives a glimpse of the real forces at work in the conflict within the ruling elite and the dominant role played by the intelligence agencies in the US political process.
The Democrats choose to wage their battle with Trump over his alleged misuse of military aid to further his own political interests and his attempts to suppress critics within the intelligence apparatus, and not his ceaseless attacks on democratic rights and trampling on constitutional principles. If they approve articles of impeachment, these will not relate to the separation of immigrant children from their parents, the seizure of funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes to build Trump’s border wall, or his encouragement of white supremacists and fascists.
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