MU law professor: Unclear how long impeachment inquiry could take

A broad scope and understaffed committees within the U.S. House of Representatives could create a long impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, according to a University of Missouri law professor.

Frank Bowman has studied impeachment from its roots in British government to its application in modern U.S. politics. He said a lack of direction from U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-California, on which committee should conduct the inquiry could hamper its progress.

Pelosi announced on Tuesday that the House would begin an impeachment inquiry following reports that President Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine around the same time he asked that country’s president to investigate the family of Joe Biden, a Democratic contender for the presidency in 2020.

Pelosi did not say which committee would conduct the inquiry, a formal process of gathering information for the purpose of possibly writing articles of impeachment. Bowman said the staff of these committees, such as the House Judiciary Committee, which is typically expected to write any articles of impeachment, have work to do in other areas of oversight.

“Instead, she spoke of six different committees continuing to do the work they’re already doing in some sort of unspecified way,” Bowman said.

The Constitution does not require the House to announce an inquiry to begin impeachment, Bowman said. An inquiry, however, does give House committees greater power to request and receive information related to their work. Bowman said that the Constitution clearly gives the House power to pursue impeachment, while its oversight power to legislate is only implicit.

“Once the House is engaged in an impeachment inquiry, its powers to demand things become greater,” Bowman said.

The House committee that writes the articles of impeachment must then vote to approve it, and send it to the full House of Representatives for a vote. A majority of that chamber must approve them. It is then on the U.S. Senate to try the president on the claims made in the articles of impeachment. A supermajority, or two-thirds, of the Senate must vote to remove the president.

Bowman said the Ukraine news could be grounds for impeachment as an abuse of power, the same claim made against former president Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

“The abuse of power that’s being alleged here is in some ways even more troubling than what Richard Nixon did,” Bowman said.