FULL TRANSCRIPT: Nancy Pelosi announces formal impeachment inquiry

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Nancy Pelosi:
Good afternoon. Last Tuesday, we observed the anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution on September 17th. Sadly on that day, the intelligence community inspector general formally notified the Congress that the administration was forbidding him from turning over a whistle blower complaint. On Constitution Day. This is a violation of the law.

Nancy Pelosi:
Shortly thereafter, press reports began to break of a phone call by the President of the United States calling upon a foreign power to intervene in his election. This is a breach of his constitutional responsibilities.

Nancy Pelosi:
The facts are these. The intelligence community inspector general, who was appointed by President Trump, determined that the complaint is both of urgent concern and credible. And its disclosure, he went on to say, relates to one of the most significant important of the director of national intelligence and his responsibility to the American people.

Nancy Pelosi:
On Thursday, the inspector general testified before the House Intelligence Committee stating that the acting director of national intelligence blocked him from disclosing the whistleblower complaint. This is a violation of law. The law is unequivocal. The DNI staff. It says DNI DNI, director of National Intelligence shall provide Congress the full whistleblower complaint.

Nancy Pelosi:
For more than 25 years, I've served on the Intelligence Committee as a member, as the ranking member as part of the gang of four, even before I was in the leadership. I was there when we created the office of the Director of National Intelligence. That did not exist before 2004. I was there even earlier in the 90s when we wrote the whistleblower laws and continue to write them to improve them, to ensure the security of our intelligence and the safety of whistleblowers.

Nancy Pelosi:
I know what their purpose was and we proceeded with balance and caution as we wrote the laws. I can say with authority, the Trump administration's actions undermine both our national security and our intelligence and our protections of the whistleblowers more than both.

Nancy Pelosi:
This Thursday, the acting DNI will appear before the House Intelligence Committee at that time. He must turn over the whistleblowers full complaint to the committee. He will have to choose whether to break the law or honor his responsibility to the Constitution.

Nancy Pelosi:
On the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when our Constitution was adopted, Americans gather on the steps of Independence Hall to await the news of the government our founders had crafted. They asked Benjamin Franklin, What do we have? A republic or a monarchy? Franklin replied a republic, if you can keep it. Our responsibility is to keep it.

Nancy Pelosi:
Republican doors, because of the wisdom of our Constitution, enshrined in three coequal branches of government serving as checks and balances on each other. The actions taken to date by the President have seriously violated the Constitution, especially when the president says. Article 2 says, I can do whatever I want.

Nancy Pelosi:
For the past several months, we have been investigating and our committees and litigating in the courts. So the House can gather all the relevant facts and consider whether to exercise its full Article 1 powers, including a constitutional power of the utmost gravity. Approval of articles of impeachment.

Nancy Pelosi:
And this week, the president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically. The action of the Trump, the actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable fact of the president's betrayal, of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.

Nancy Pelosi:
Therefore, today, I'm announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. I'm directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry. The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law.

Nancy Pelosi:
Getting back for our founders. In the darkest days of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote, the times have found us. The times found them to fight for and establish our democracy. The times have found us today. Not to place ourselves in the same category of greatness as our founders. But to place us in the urgency of protecting and defending our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And the words of Ben Franklin to keep our republic.

Nancy Pelosi:
I thank our chairman, chairman, chairman, Nather, chairman, Schiff for another judiciary chairmanship of intelligence, chairman Engle of Foreign Affairs, Chairman Cummings of Oversight and Chairman Cummings, I've been in touch with constantly. He is the master of of so much, but including inspectors general and and whistleblowers. Congresswoman Richie Neal of the of the Ways and Means Committee, Congresswoman Maxine Waters of the Financial Services Committee. And I commend all of our members, our colleagues, for their thoughtful, thoughtful approach to all of this, for their careful statements.

Nancy Pelosi:
God bless them and God bless America. Thank you.

Anonymous:
Now, of course, you've been convicted by the Senate. What does this accomplish? If the Senate doesn't convict?

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