Pelosi backs impeachment

WASHINGTON—After resisting pressure from her caucus for more than a year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced her support for a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. His July phone call with the president of Ukraine—now the subject of a controversial whistleblower report—constituted a “breach of national security,” the Democrat from California said in justification of the inquiry.

What happens next? The House needs 218 votes to initiate formal proceedings. Close to 170 lawmakers supported the effort before Pelosi’s announcement, and that number had risen to 205 by Wednesday morning.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the whistleblower who raised the alert about the phone call has requested to testify before the House and Senate intelligence committees. They could hear from that individual as soon as this week. Meanwhile, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is scheduled to appear before the House Intelligence Committee in a public hearing Thursday. The White House said it would hand over the whistleblower report to Congress by the end of the week, and Trump released the transcript of his call with the Ukrainian president Wednesday morning. “You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

WORLD has updated this report with the number of Democrats who support impeachment and news about the White House release of information to Congress and the public.