Impeachment inquiry hits close to home

Congresswoman Maxine Waters says there is “absolutely” enough evidence to draft articles of impeachment against Trump, adding that she and other committee chairs can finish their investigations “before the year is out.”

The California representative, who visited Cyprus last month as the head of US House Financial Services Committee, told media outlets that she expected an impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump to “move very quickly” after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the formalization of an impeachment inquiry earlier this week.

During the announcement, Pelosi listed six House committees currently probing possible offences committed by the US President, including Waters’ committee, signaling that all investigations would continue under the umbrella of a formal impeachment inquiry.

Waters, who led a delegation to the Republic of Cyprus last month, issued a statement following the visit saying she was pleased with the country’s progress against financial crime but also wished to see further advancement in the effort.

But the congresswoman, who vowed last year to scrutinize ties between President Trump and Deutsche Bank as well as Bank of Cyprus, has also been seeking financial documents in connection with financial dealings of Donald Trump.

“We have been seeking documents relative to Deutsche Bank and its involvement with the President of the United States but we have also been seeking documents from several other banks,” Waters said on MSNBC.

Waters, who mentioned the Bank of Cyprus by name in previous statements, clarified this week that her committee did not have specific language as “some bank documents are still being sought through litigation.”

The Chairwoman has been calling for more transparency into the financial dealings of the American President. Deutsche Bank, Trump’s largest creditor, has been fined by US and UK government agencies for failing to prevent money laundering, while the bank’s former CEO, Josef Ackermann, later became chairman at the Bank of Cyprus.

But Waters clarified that the financial services committee did not yet have all the necessary documents to make a case against the President.

“I don’t have all of the information that I need in order to move forward with specific language that would go into the impeachment inquiry,” the California representative told MSNBC.

The US House judiciary committee has taken a lead on the inquiry while the involvement of Waters’ committee along with the four others has not been clarified.

“The idea is that we would get together and put on the table everything we know and everything we are doing that we think would be good and important and substantive for an impeachment resolution,” Waters told MSNBC.

She also said that she expected committees would be able to reach consensus before forwarding the matter to the judiciary committee.

Pelosi has formalized the inquiry following evidence into an alleged abuse of power by US President Donald Trump in connection with a phone conversation he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump critics believe that a recently-released phone transcript by the White House suggests the US president committed crimes while seeking dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, thought by some as Trump’s possible opponent in 2020 elections.

In response to the allegations, President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani came out implicating Cyprus in Ukrainian money laundering assertions he had made regarding Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

Giuliani claimed that a prosecutor looking into possible wrongdoing and financial dealings in Ukraine had been removed in a cover up favouring Biden, while reports said the top prosecutor was voted out of office and his replacement, who carried out the investigation, found no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his son.

Trump is being accused of using his presidential leverage and powers to re-start a fake investigation in an effort to find dirt on his political opponent.