Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday afternoon that the House of Representatives will begin a formal impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. Pelosi’s action—long awaited by many Democratic activists after findings in the Mueller Report—comes in response to startling new allegations that the president recently sought to enlist Ukraine in his personal electoral cause. Namely, undermining current frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020—former Vice President Joe Biden.

Pelosi, the daughter of former Baltimore mayor Thomas D’Alessandro Jr., announced the start of an impeachment inquiry on Capitol Hill following a closed-door meeting with her Democratic caucus.

“The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the Constitution,” she said. President Trump, she said, “must be held accountable—no one is above the law.”

Impeachment has occurred twice in U.S. history, with charges brought against Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Neither president was removed or left office. Rather than face a House of Representatives vote on impeachment over the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974.

Even if the House—where the Democrats hold a majority—votes to impeach Trump after their inquiry, forcing a president from the White House requires a conviction in the Senate. In that chamber, where Republicans hold a majority, elected GOP officials have remained in lockstep behind Trump during each controversy of his presidency.

Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden, his potential rival, and his son, Hunter Biden, who served on board of the country’s largest private gas company, were brought forth by a U.S. intelligence whistleblower. Earlier Tuesday, Trump acknowledged he withheld $391 million in military support for Ukraine in the run-up to his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The president and his personal lawyer, former New York Mayor and former GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, have suggested Biden tried to protect the Ukrainian company, and thereby his son, from a corruption investigation. Neither Trump, Giuliani, nor anyone else to date, has provided evidence of illegal activity by either Biden.

Fact checking and investigations by multiple U.S. news outlets have repudiated Trump’s and Giuliani’s allegations that the former vice president attempted to protect his son by advocating for the removal of the former top Ukrainian prosecutor. The current prosecutor general of Ukraine, Yuri Luiseno, has looked into the matter and cleared the Bidens.

Leading up to Tuesday’s announcement by Pelosi, Maryland’s congressional delegation, who had been hesitant to speak out in favor of an impeachment inquiry previously, offered their strong backing for formal hearings.

“We can now see with our own eyes that the President is jeopardizing our national security,” Rep. Elijah Cummings said in a statement, referring to Trump allegedly holding back military aid to an ally in exchange for damning information on an American political candidate. “He admitted to personally withholding military security that Congress appropriated to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression. He admitted to personally urging a foreign actor to dig up dirt on his political rival. And he personally attacked a whistleblower whose protected information is being withheld from Congress in violation of the law.”

In a move described as unprecedented, the Trump Administration’s acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has refused to share the whistleblower complaint with congressional intelligence committees, even after receiving a subpoena.

Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he would release the transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian president, referring to the conversation as “totally appropriate.” The release of the whistleblower complaint, which is required to be turned over to Congress, remains another story, however. Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that whistleblower’s allegations involving the president and his contact with Ukraine—of which the July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president is just a part, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The Washington Post—were deemed credible and of “urgent concern.”

The Mueller Report, of course, found multiple contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian representatives during the 2016 election season.

Fellow Maryland Democratic Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger emphasized his national security concerns regarding the president’s contacts with Ukraine: “As a former prosecutor, I have resisted calls to begin formal impeachment proceedings against the President until we had clear, indisputable evidence that transcends politics,” Ruppersberger said in a statement. “Jeopardizing our national security is where I draw the line. Withholding duly appropriated money meant to aid a country that could be overtaken by Russia is reckless and dangerous. This is yet another example of the President doing Putin’s bidding.”

“President Trump’s actions are a threat to our democracy,” Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said in a press release. “His continued disregard for our Constitution and the democratic norms that guide our nation have caused irreparable harm to our country, our standing in the world, and to the Office of the Presidency. As the White House continues to prevent the House of Representatives from exercising their Constitutionally-mandated oversight role, it has become clear that the tools provided by an impeachment inquiry must be employed.”

Maryland Democratic Congressman John Sarbanes said Trump’s alleged conduct, “constitute[s] a direct attack on our democracy and signify an unprecedented new level of corruption and lawlessness in the White House.”

“President Trump’s attempt to pressure a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 election is a blatant abuse of power,” Sarbanes said.

By coincidence, former Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled for a private fundraising event at Citron, a Pikesville restaurant and event space, Tuesday evening, according to reporting by The Baltimore Sun. However, Biden and his team were forced to head back to home to Wilmington, Delaware, after realizing the former vice president would not make it in time because of traffic caused by an overturned a tractor-trailer on I-95.

After a 22-month investigation into President Donald Trump’s possible collusion with Russia, special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report garnered riveting attention across the country Thursday after a redacted version was made public.

The key findings span a range of conclusions, and frustratingly to some, no conclusion in one key matter—the allegations of obstruction of justice.

The report found there were numerous contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russians affiliated with the foreign government during the run-up to the 2018 election and afterward. But the special counsel did not establish that there was sufficient evidence to indict the president, or any Trump campaign official, with conspiring with Russian intelligence operatives to influence the election.

However, the Mueller investigation did find repeated examples in which the president directed officials around him to halt or derail the inquiry, including attempting to get Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to oust Mueller. Trump’s efforts failed because those officials did not comply with the president’s wishes and demands, according to the report.

“The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” the special counsel determined.

Rosenstein, who was nominated by Trump to his position, served as U.S. attorney for the district of Maryland from 2005 to April 2017. Following Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the investigation, Rosenstein appointed Mueller, a former director of the FBI, to head the inquiry.

Ron Weich, dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law, said that even without further indictments of president’s campaign team, the release of the report was important and necessary for the American people “to see the full conduct the president and his team.”

“The narrative of the report reveals the campaign willingly accepted and encouraged assistance from a foreign adversary, including [former Trump campaign manager] Paul Manafort, who shared campaign polling information to help Russia influence the election,” Weich said.

Among others, Manafort, former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, and Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos have all already pled or been found guilty of crimes charged by Mueller’s team, though those convictions were not directly related to their campaign work.

Mueller’s team also declined to prosecute the president’s son, Donald Jr., the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and other campaign members for their participation in the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, who had promised political “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. In part, investigators said, because they couldn’t prove that they “willfully” violated the law.

In terms of Mueller’s decision not to indict the president on obstruction of justice charges, Weich, who served as an assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice during the Obama administration, noted that according to DOJ guidelines, a sitting president couldn’t be indicted. The decision to remove a president is essentially left up to Congress, which has the power to impeach.

That said, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who represents Maryland’s 5th District, told CNN that he does not expect impeachment proceedings to move forward.

“Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point,” Hoyer told CNN. “Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgment.”

“I think Bob Mueller is a cautious man, a cautious prosecutor,” said Weich, who knows Mueller, the director of the FBI during his time at the DOJ, as well Rosenstein, whom he met after taking over as dean of the law school at the University of Baltimore in 2012. “Both Bob Mueller and Rod Rosenstein have sterling reputations.” Rosenstein will be the commence speaker at University of Baltimore School of Law’s graduation ceremony in May.

Overall, reactions to the report’s conclusions fell largely along well established partisan divides.

U.S. Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, who represents Maryland’s 2nd District, pointed to “at least 10 instances” in the report in which President Trump attempted to interfere with the Mueller investigation. He encouraged all Americans to read the report, in particular, the sections on obstruction of justice “so they can determine for themselves if the behavior described in this report is becoming of a United States President.”

In a statement, Maryland U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, said Congress must subpoena the full Mueller report and all underlying documents. “This report catalogues in excruciating detail a proliferation of lies by the President to the American people, as well as his incessant and repeated efforts to encourage others to lie,” Cummings wrote.

Cummings also criticized current Attorney General William Barr’s favorable summary of the report earlier this month and again during a Thursday morning press conference. “Contrary to AG Barr’s attempts at misdirection, it is crystal clear from the report that DOJ’s policy against indicting a sitting President played a key role in Special Counsel Mueller’s analysis—in fact, it is the very first point in the obstruction section of his report.”

In the report’s conclusion in the obstruction section, the Mueller team said, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, from Maryland’s 1st District, called the investigation “two years of wasted time, energy, and $25 million” in a tweet Thursday. “It’s time we move on from partisan politics to issues Americans truly care about, like securing our border, addressing the opioid crisis, and continuing to grow our economy.”

In terms of how the Mueller report plays out politically, Richard Vatz, Towson University professor of rhetoric and communication, called the investigation document “a perfect Rorschach test.”

“Republicans will take a look and say, ‘See what did I tell you?’ and smile,” Vatz said. “Democrats will take a look and say, “See what did I tell you?’ and smile.

“The president has never had a majority of the country’s support, but [the report’s release] will harden his base,” Vatz continued. “And the 30 percent that despise him will despise him even more. The question will become: If the economy keeps growing and there are no major foreign entanglements, will he get movement from those in the middle when the election comes around?”