Impeachment Inquiry – A Guide to the Impeachment Inquiry’s Most Powerful Women
The impeachment inquiry has been overrun with men. Ever since news broke that President Donald Trump had attempted to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, attempting to withhold crucial aid to Ukraine in order to extract an investigation into his political rival, the stories have been filled with men.
There’s Trump himself, of course. But also: his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelensky; his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani; U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland; Energy Secretary Rick Perry; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Andrey Yermak, an aide to Zelensky; Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a top Ukraine expert on the White House National Security Council; George Kent; William Taylor; Hunter Biden; former vice president Joe Biden. And on.
And on.
But for all the men—in the Oval Office, the cabinet, Ukraine, Russia, the House of Representatives, the National Security Council, Trump’s ear, his Twitter feed—women continue to play a prominent role in the impeachment inquiry, providing crucial testimony, addictive commentary, and the political will to hold this president to account.
Here, a guide to those women who’ve quickly become Trump’s worst nightmare.
Nancy Pelosi, the Boss
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wasn’t the first Democratic woman in Congress to call for Donald Trump’s impeachment (in fact, she was closer to the last), but her support for this inquiry is the reason it’s happening at all. At 79, Pelosi is still a master vote counter. She’s also adept at dealing with petulant children; she has five. That combination—decades of experience and zero patience for shenanigans—has readied her for this moment.
So when the political tide did turn on impeachment, with moderates in the Democratic caucus reversing their stances to back it (joining the likes of Representatives Maxine Waters, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had been calling for impeachment for months) as more and more damning details trickled out, Pelosi seized on the momentum. Within a matter of weeks, Pelosi was publicly accusing Trump of violating his oath of office, threatening national security, and compromising the integrity of our democracy.
Last week she tacked a new claim onto the list of Trump offenses—bribery. It’s one of the few violations that the Constitution expressly names, so it is a big deal. It’s also likely more intelligible to the American people than a “quid pro quo.” First we save the republic. Then we learn Latin.
Or as Pelosi put it to reporters last week: “The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival—a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election.”
With the probe underway and taking place within congressional committees, Pelosi is no longer its face. But she’s still one of the most prominent voices on Capitol Hill, and so how she chooses to frame the stakes of it still matters.
Marie Yovanovitch, the Stateswoman
If it were up to her, Marie Yovanovitch would not be trending on Twitter. Until she was fired from her post in Ukraine and recalled to Washington, D.C., in May, she wasn’t well known outside of the civil service. Yovanovitch has been a career diplomat for most of her professional life, quietly serving in Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Ukraine under both Democratic and Republican administrations. But after Trump dismissed her, her profile grew. First she was turned into the target of a conspiracy-fueled, utterly baseless smear campaign, thanks to Rudy Giuliani and the right-wing news media. Then she became a star witness in the impeachment inquiry, testifying privately in October and in public last week.