House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and several other female House Democrats are wearing black attire in an effort to show Wednesday’s scheduled impeachment vote is a “somber day.”
CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash tweeted that Pelosi conveyed to her that she “feels sad” over today’s vote as she walked into the House chamber while House Democrats debate impeachment.
“As she walked into the house chamber @SpeakerPelosi told me she ‘feels sad,’” wrote Bash, before adding in a subsequent tweet: “@SpeakerPelosi is wearing black. One of her colleagues told me several of the female Democrats did that intentionally to signal it is a somber day.”
The Hill and Spectrum News reporter Taylor Popielarz shared videos of Pelosi entering the House in a black dress, flanked by fellow lawmakers and staff members.
The full House has begun debating two articles of impeachment before the vote.
The House rules committee set the agenda on Tuesday, allowing six hours of debate with no amendments as lawmakers weigh charges that say Trump is a threat to national security because he lobbied a foreign government to interfere in the U.S. electoral process, and then tried to hinder Congress in its subsequent investigation.
House Democrats, with a 232-198 majority in the chamber, are expected to have enough support to impeach Trump on both articles and send them to the Senate for trial.
Wednesday’s debate time will be equally divided between the House’s Democrat majority and Republican minority, overseen by House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler and ranking Republican Rep. Doug Collins.
Following the debates, the House will hold separate votes on each article of impeachment. If they pass, the chamber may consider a resolution to appoint and authorize impeachment managers for a Senate trial.
The impeachment proceedings were prompted by a partisan CIA analyst’s whistleblower complaint, in which it was alleged Trump sought to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate allegations of corruption against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Both Trump and Zelensky deny the accusations, and the White House released a transcript of their July 25 telephone conversation as evidence that no wrongdoing took place during the call.
Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Zelensky, confirmed last Monday that the eastern European country never felt U.S. military aid was tied to any investigations.
“We never had that feeling,” he told Time magazine. “We had a clear understanding that the aid has been frozen. We honestly said, ‘Okay, that’s bad, what’s going on here.’ We were told that they would figure it out. And after a certain amount of time the aid was unfrozen. We did not have the feeling that this aid was connected to any one specific issue.”
The UPI contributed to this report.