The White House will publish the transcript of Trump's appeal in Ukraine as indictment efforts begin

Democrats in the House had planned to plead their case against the president on Wednesday with a vote on a resolution condemning Mr. Trump for not having yet released the whistleblower complaint, part of which concerns the July phone call with the Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky.

Meanwhile, Trump will meet with Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday afternoon. The Ukrainian leader, who did not comment on the call between the two leaders, said he expected a "substantive substantive meeting" with Mr Trump.

After months of resistance to an impeachment investigation, Ms. Pelosi said at the end of a day of meetings with House Democrats that she had asked six House committees that were investigating already on Mr. Trump to continue their investigations "under the umbrella of a dismissal investigation".

"The measures taken to date by the President have seriously violated the Constitution," said Ms. Pelosi (D., California), who said she was concerned about the political risks of the impeachment.

The path she has chosen avoids a full House vote for the initiation of an investigation, a step that has been taken on each of the three previous occasions when the House initiated impeachment proceedings against a president. Such a resolution would require 218 votes to be adopted; As of Tuesday night, after several Democrats said they were joining the cause, more than 190 lawmakers publicly supported a move to impeachment.

This decision marks the culmination of a debate that lasted nearly a year among Democrats and showed how difficult it was to demand the removal of Mr. Trump, especially since their takeover of the House this year. . Earlier, the Democrats focused on Trump's campaign ties with Russia, which was the subject of a special council report earlier this year, among other issues involving the president.

Some lawmakers argue that the Republican president using his position to pressure a foreign entity to investigate a political opponent in his own interest is an impenetrable offense.

Pelosi's decision also bets on the fact that voters, for whom polls are suspicious of impeachment, can be persuaded once again that facts emerge.

"The dam has yielded because it's a form of betrayal of its presidential oath and national security taking place in real time," said Representative Jamie Raskin (D. , Md.), Which supports an imputation inquiry. "Trump is not just a candidate now, he is president of the United States."

Mr. Trump, who tweeted from his home in Trump Tower in New York after his appearance at the United Nations, called the investigation "presidential harassment!"

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump called the allegations a "witch hunt," repeating a chorus that he frequently used to describe the nearly two-year investigation into his campaign's relations with Russia.

Trump said he approved the publication of the transcript of the July telephone conversation with Zelensky, in which he had repeatedly asked his Ukrainian counterpart to open an investigation into the Bidens. But Democrats seek to obtain the publication of a full whistleblower complaint filed with the Inspector General of the intelligence community, which includes the July phone call and is the subject of An unusual impasse.

The whistleblower's complaint must first be declassified before it can be returned to Congress, according to the person familiar with the case.

Ms. Pelosi's statement was made after a meeting with all the legislators of the Democratic House to discuss how to handle the situation in Ukraine. After the meeting, more and more Democrats joined the speaker in supporting a dismissal investigation, although some members wanted to see the whistleblower's report and learn more about Trump's interactions with him. Mr. Zelensky.

"We need a whistleblower's complaint, we need to know what the whistleblower has to say," said representative Susan Wild (D., pa.). "You do not just go to trial without having the facts. But these are very, very serious allegations. "

The chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives, Adam Schiff (D., California), Tuesday asked the whistleblower to speak voluntarily before the Intelligence Committee. He said he would organize a format that would guarantee the confidentiality of whistleblowers.

Ms. Pelosi was reluctant to the impeachment process, saying that she would prefer to defeat Trump at the polls in 2020. She spent the weekend and Monday making calls to the Democrats on-the-fence and her allies, taking the storm where the members stood.

Mr. Trump's acts concerning Ukraine prompted Ms. Pelosi to act. The president has asked his acting chief of staff to suspend 391 million dollars in aid to Ukraine more than a week before the July phone call, in which he had urged his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Mr. Biden's son, according to someone close to the case. material.

Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer,

Rudy Giuliani,

have argued, without proof, that the anti-corruption campaign led by the then Vice-President in Ukraine aimed to open an investigation into a company whose son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the board of directors. administration. The Ukrainian Attorney General at the time, Yuriy Lutsenko, said that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or his son.

Mr Trump said Tuesday he suspended aid to Ukraine, frustrated by the level of contributions from Europe to the country. A day earlier, he had indicated that there was a link between his delay in assisting Ukraine and his concerns about corruption in the country.

On Capitol Hill, two major groups supported a dismissal investigation on Monday, resulting in a change of caucus: Democratic legislators in competitive districts won by Mr. Trump in 2016; and close allies of Mrs. Pelosi, who was watching her, like the representatives.

Debbie Dingell

Michigan and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.

The eminent representative John Lewis (D., Georgia), long perceived as an indicator of the impeachment in the House, rallied to this effort Tuesday, saying that "the time has come to engage an impeachment procedure against this president ".

The Judiciary Committee of the House will conduct the investigation, said a person familiar with the case. The commission is already investigating the allegations of the former special council of the president.

Robert Mueller

Mr Trump's report prevented justice from doing justice while he was under investigation for campaign links with Russia in the 2016 election. Trump denied any obstruction or connection with Russia.

Three presidents of Democratic House committees on Tuesday pleaded their case against the White House in the light of new reports that Trump would demand a delay in aid to Ukraine. Without directly using the word "impeachment", Mr. Schiff, accompanied by the Chairman of the Supervisory Committee

Elijah Cummings

(D., Md.) And Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

Eliot Engel

(D., N.Y.) warned that the president's conduct, as described in the news bulletins, could meet the standards that many Democrats see as an obstacle to determining Trump's behavior to justify his dismissal.

"If the recent reports are accurate, it means that the president met with a foreign leader who was investigating a political opponent in an upcoming election. This is the very definition of abuse of power through corruption, "wrote the three presidents.

The House controlled by the Democrats needs a simple majority to dismiss the president. If Mr. Trump is removed from the House, the file would go to the Republican-controlled Senate, which could well be sentenced to an absolute two-thirds majority. No Republican senator supports the impeachment of the president and many deputies ignored the president's actions regarding Ukraine.

At a regular press conference on Tuesday afternoon, a reporter asked Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, what he would do if there were indictments about the Speaker being sent from the House .

"Wait a minute, we have here an allegation about Ukrainian help by the whistleblower, which is pretty much all we know now," said McConnell, adding, "I do not I'm not going to deal with all those hypothetical assumptions that have been made about what may or may not happen in the House, and I think it's all premature. "

-Siobhan Hughes, Rebecca Ballhaus, Ken Thomas, Jesse Naranjo, Catherine Lucey and Lindsay Wise contributed to this article.

Write to Natalie Andrews at [email protected] and Andrew Duehren at [email protected]