The news that Democratic House leadership was finally opening up a formal impeachment inquiry (is that sort of like putting your toe in the water to see how cold it is?) was welcome news to those who have been pushing to do so for many months (read: Black people). And while there was no guarantee that the impeachment inquiry would result in an actual impeachment, critics of the president said the move was long overdue. The fact that it was prompted by such an avoidable reason lent more glee to those reveling in Donald Trump’s apparent state of panic after the inquiry was launched.
“The actions of the Trump presidency have revealed the 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,” House Majority Leader and California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday afternoon. “Therefore, today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry.”
https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1176604196977594369?s=20
The Cliff Notes version of what compelled the House to act now (as opposed to, say, with any of the other clear violations the president has committed since and before his election in 2016) is that Trump is accused of threatening to withhold financial aid to Ukraine unless the Eastern European country investigated frontrunning Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and the circumstances surrounding how the former vice president’s son came to be employed there. The Washington Post reported that as “violating the Constitution in seeking help from a foreign leader to damage a political opponent.” There is apparently a transcript from the phone call where Trump allegedly made these demands to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.
An unredacted transcript of the phone call in question was released Wednesday and showed that Trump did indeed urge Zelensky to “look into” the employment situation that the president said “sounds horrible to me.”
Trump continued: “I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down, which is really unfair,” the president told Zelensky during the call, the transcript showed. Trump says on the call, according to the transcript. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, what Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great.”
Of course, the impeachment inquiry has heavy political implications, especially as we head into an election year. But if the phone transcript does not prove what Democrats were basing the impeachment inquiry on, initiating the proceedings could backfire and help Trump get re-elected.
But that was a risk Democrats appeared ready to take. It was also one that was being wholly embraced across social media as Black Twitter users especially rejoiced in the prospects of the House using their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution by keeping the president in check. It can’t be forgotten that Black political leaders, including and especially California Rep. Maxine Waters, have been calling for this same impeachment inquiry for well over a year now. Texas Rep. Al Green alone has introduced three separate House resolutions since 2017 to impeach Trump.
Despite those efforts, Pelosi had consistently said it as the wrong time to do so — until Tuesday, when the proof (and pressure) appeared to be too much for the House Majority Leader to ignore.
As such, scroll down to see a sample of the thousands of tweets from Black Twitter users showing how they were getting ready to attend what they called an “impeachment party,” a term that went on to be one of the social network’s top trending topics Wednesday morning.
