Impeachment probe: Trump gets no respite after US raid

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump scored one of the biggest successes of his presidency with the killing of an IS leader, yet the battlefield victory isn’t likely to blunt the momentum of Democrats moving closer to impeaching him.
The inquiry led by three House committees resumed with another slate of witnesses, even as the country absorbs Trump’s dramatic announcement of the death of IS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was cornered in a tunnel by US forces.
History suggests Trump may enjoy a boost in public support after the raid, but it will likely be short-lived. That gives Democrats little incentive to slow down an impeachment inquiry, especially after testimony bolstered their main line of investigation into whether the president pressured the government of Ukraine for his personal political benefit.
“We will be doing public hearings, and I think we’ll being doing them soon” Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said on ABC’s “This Week” programme.
Lawmakers and officials familiar with committee plans say the aim has been to wrap up the impeachment probe by the end of the year. But with a long list of potential witnesses, House adjournments and holidays ahead, there are rising doubts that timetable can be met, even if White House roadblocks aren’t successful.
Representative Gerald Connolly, a member of the Oversight and Reform Committee conducting the inquiry with the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs panels, said he hasn’t been told of any official deadline to wrap up the inquiry, but getting it done by the end of the year would be “very challenging.”
“I don’t know if we can make that,” the Virginia Democrat said. “I would favour acceleration of the process of the evidence we have now, most of which is in the public domain.”
Schiff said he would give a precise timeline for beginning public hearings, which are all but certain to lead to drafting of articles of impeachment.
“In part we’re struggling with the White House’s continuing efforts to obstruct our investigation, to obstruct witnesses coming in,” Schiff said.
If the House votes to impeach Trump, it will be up to the Republican-led Senate to decide whether to remove him from office.
Republicans continued to argue, as Trump has, that the impeachment inquiry is politically motivated and is taking attention away from more important work Congress should be doing.
Several cited the raid in which Baghdadi was killed.