Here we go: the House Judiciary Committee just initiated the impeachment process against Donald Trump

This morning, Palmer Report told you that we were closer to the start of Donald Trump’s impeachment than ever. This was based on reports that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler had privately pressured Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to begin the impeachment process, and that Pelosi had merely said that the timing was “premature.” Now this afternoon, Nadler has begun the impeachment process after all – and Pelosi is tacitly on board with it.

Nadler and his committee are now making the formal argument in court that they need the grand jury proceedings from Robert Mueller’s investigation, so they can use it to make a determination on whether to impeach Donald Trump. If this sounds like an impeachment inquiry to you, it’s because it is one. When CNN’s Manu Raju asked Nadler if this was indeed an impeachment inquiry, Nadler responded “in effect” that it is. This means the impeachment process has begun.

It’s clear that Nancy Pelosi privately signed off on this, or Jerry Nadler wouldn’t be doing it. This means Pelosi is tacitly on board with this de facto impeachment inquiry. If you don’t want to rely on our interpretation alone, Harvard Law Professor and foremost constitutional expert Laurence Tribe tweeted this: “People who’re describing this as merely an inquiry into ‘whether’ to begin an impeachment inquiry are totally wrong. This IS the ‘impeachment inquiry’ that anyone who knows what’s up has been calling for. Neither more nor less.”

So here we go. The impeachment process against Donald Trump has begun – not with the bang that some were fantasizing about – but it’s nonetheless begun. House Democrats are not yet locked into bringing articles of impeachment. But as Palmer Report has long explained, that phase is not going to happen until the Democrats have finished winning their court battles over evidence and testimony.