Nancy Pelosi expects Donald Trump impeachment hearings to begin this month
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has said she expects the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump to begin public hearings this month.
“I assume there would be public hearing in November,” the top House Democrat said in an interview with Bloomberg, but insisted there was no deadline to finish the investigation.
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Pelosi also said that any case made to impeach the president “has to be ironclad”.
Her comments come the day after the House voted to move on to the next stage of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, establishing the formal process for public hearings in the investigation.
The speaker said today that closed-door depositions of witnesses will continue as long as they are “productive” for the inquiry.
“I don’t know what the timetable will be – the truth will set us free,” said Pelosi.
“We have not made any decisions on if the president will be impeached.”
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An impeachment inquiry is the first stage during which the House decides where there is sufficient evidence to impeach a president, which could lead to their removal from office.
Should the House vote to impeach Trump by a simple majority, the vote then passes to the US Senate, which has to back impeachment with a two-thirds majority in order to convict the president. This is currently considered to be a highly unlikely outcome.