“I thought today was a historic day and a historic week. The facts have clearly changed,” said Lamb on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time. “We are in a different place than we were last week because of these allegations, and I think this is going to ramp up the urgency behind this investigation, and I support that.”
"I support Chairman Schiff's investigation," says Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb, who said prior to the release of the whistleblower compliant that he would withhold his support for an impeachment inquiry until he got more evidence. https://t.co/NHNjPdIfGP pic.twitter.com/BaWboFsPPh
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) September 27, 2019
On Tuesday, Democratic House Leadership announced an impeachment inquiry would begin, which came soon after a whistleblower complaint was released alleging Trump pressured Ukrainian officials to undermine Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. The Trump administration has since released a partial transcript of a phone call with the Ukrainian president, where Trumps asks the president for a favor shortly after discussing the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. provides to Ukraine in military aid.
Over the past week, Lamb had been reluctant to offer his support for the investigation, saying he wanted the full whistleblower complaint to be released before making a statement. He was among about 16 Democrats who had not indicated their support. Today, that complaint was released, and Lamb announced his support late this evening.
On CNN, Lamb said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the impeachment-inquiry label on the investigation and acknowledged they are one and the same, but he said he supports the effort calling the allegations involving Ukraine an “urgent national security threat."
However, Lamb indicated that his support for the inquiry doesn’t mean he is ready to support voting for impeaching Trump.
“I didn’t want my judgments about this investigation to appear as part of a larger partisan move,” Lamb said to the P-G. “I wanted to make it really clear to people that I was reviewing everything myself, line by line.”
Some Democrats have stated that the whistleblower complaint and the phone call with the Ukraine president are enough vote to impeach Trump. U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Forest Hills) has said that if the latest allegations against Trump are accurate, then that would constitute an impeachable offense, but Doyle has not said he is ready to vote for that yet.
