Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday defended her approach to the first impeachment of then-President Donald Trump in 2019, in her first public comments on the Republican effort to launch an inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Pelosi, in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, denied having changed precedent in the chamber, as Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has claimed in recent days to justify his strategy.
“He is saying Nancy didn’t bring a bill to the floor. We did,” Pelosi insisted to Cooper in an interview on “AC360.”
McCarthy, facing increasing pressure from his right flank to move ahead with an inquiry into Biden, announced Tuesday he was calling on his committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into the president, even as they have yet to prove allegations he directly profited from his son’s foreign business deals.
As CNN previously reported, the speaker’s announcement “directing” a House committee to open a formal inquiry into Biden meant there would be no floor vote to formally authorize the effort, according to a GOP source. Skipping an impeachment inquiry vote would mark a departure from McCarthy’s previous comments on the matter, but the speaker earlier Wednesday placed the blame squarely on his predecessor.
“Nancy Pelosi changed the precedent of this House on September 24th. … Why would it have to be different today?” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.
Pelosi shot back Wednesday, telling Cooper: “No, it’s completely not true. We had a few weeks where we had to make our case and I assigned six committee chairs to get the information and the rest and that then prepared us to bring the bill to the floor. They’ve had what nine months of collecting information, they have nothing.”
The House did hold a vote to launch the first impeachment inquiry into Trump,…
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