2019 Donald Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Editor's note: for memes about the December 2019 impeachment of President Donald Trump by the US Congress, please refer to the respective entry.

Overview

2019 Donald Trump Impeachment Inquiry refers to the initiation of impeachment proceedings by House Democrats against United States President Donald Trump for allegedly betraying his oath of office. The announcement follows a whistleblower complaint that President Trump had pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to influence the 2020 presidential election by opening an investigation into presidential candidate Vice President Joe Biden.

Background

Whistleblower Complaint

On August 21st, The New York Times reported that Giuliani had pushed the Ukranian government into investigating Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. They wrote,^[5] "Mr. Giuliani has spoken on the phone and held an in-person meeting, in Madrid, with a top representative of the new Ukrainian president, encouraging his government to ramp up investigations into two matters of intense interest to Mr. Trump." About two weeks later, on September 5th, The Washington Post^[6] accused the president of attempting to "strong arm" the president by withholding aide to the country.

On September 9th, 2019, House Democrats launched an investigation into Rudy Giuliani's alleged efforts to "dig up dirt" on Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine. Axios reported^[3] that "Giuliani had met with a top associate of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to push the government to investigate potential conflicts of interest involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who once served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company."

On September 12th, the Trump administration released $250 million in aide to Ukraine, which would be used to fend off aggression from Russia. The money had been withheld for nearly a month.^[1]

On September 13th, 2019, U.S. Representative Adam Schiff issued a subpoena^[2] for a "unlawfully withheld" whistleblower complaint to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, which had been filed on August 12th, 2019. Schiff alleged that in August an official within the intelligence community had filed a complaint "regarding a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law, or deficiency within the responsibility or authority of the Director of National Intelligence." The report was deemed credible and urgent by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. Days later, the Maguire had refused to testify before congress.^[4]

On September 21st, the Wall Street Journal reported that the president had "repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son." However, the Journal states that according to a person familiar on the matter, "Mr. Trump in the call didn’t mention a provision of U.S. aid to Ukraine [and] didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid pro quo for his cooperation on any investigation."

Response From Trump Administration

On September 19th, 2019, in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo the President's lawyer admitted to asking with the Ukranian government to investigate Vice President Biden (video below).

On September 23rd, President Trump told reporters that he mentioned Biden during the call with the Ukranian president on July 25th. While Trump maintained that the call was largely "congragulatory," he said, "It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son, creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine."

Pelosi Announcement

On September 24th, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would launch a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. She said, "This week, the president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically. The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections."

Developments

Online Reaction

Following Pelosi's announcement, critics of President Trump on Twitter begane posting a series of reaction videos expressing, what they believe to be, Pelosi's and Democrats' feelings of joy and confidence in the proceedings. Many of these videos featured people strutting to upbeat music and dancing (examples below).

#ImpeachTrump Nancy Pelosi announces impeachment inquiry
Democrats: pic.twitter.com/PoHWLJUWUi

— 🅱️ruhgressive (@bruhgressive) September 24, 2019

Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats on their way to impeach Donald Trump #impeachment #ImpeachTrump pic.twitter.com/YJjjdIvtt1

— Dania (@daniarv25) September 24, 2019

Others tweeted images and GIFs of support for Pelosi and her decision to move forward on impeachment (examples below).

Several media outlets reported on the meme, including The Daily Dot, ^[7] StayHipp,^[8] Los Angeles Magazine,^[9] BuzzFeed, ^[10] Bustle^[11] and more.

The announcement also sparked conversation on numerous threads on Reddit, gaining more than 50,000 points each in /r/worldnews,^[12] /r/news^[13] and /r/politics.^{[14][15][16][17][18]}

Transcript of Call

On September 25th, The White House released an unredacted transcript of the call with the Ukranian president.^[19] The transcript revealed that Trump encouraged the Ukranian president to reach out to Attorney General William Barr about Biden. He said, "There is a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that."

Impeachment by Congress

The Impeachment of President Donald Trump occurred on December 18th, 2019. Following a weeks-long impeachment inquiry into the President Trump's conduct in a July 2019 phone call with the President of Ukraine and his subsequent withholding of congressionally approved aid, the House impeached the president in a vote mostly along party lines, 230 voted for and 197 voted nay, on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Search Interest

External References