The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry: Live updates - CNN International

The House Intelligence Committee's last public impeachment inquiry — or at least the last one that has been scheduled — just wrapped up this week. House Democrats are now actively preparing for the next steps.

Now: The House Intelligence Committee, along with two other panels, are writing a report detailing their findings, which is expected to serve as the basis for articles of impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee will consider. Democrats say they are still debating the size and scope of the articles, which are likely to focus on abuse of power, obstruction of justice, obstruction of Congress and bribery.
December: Privately, Democrats are anticipating a busy December that will be filled with proceedings before the House Judiciary Committee.
By Christmas: A likely vote to impeach Trump on the House floor could come by Christmas Day, which would make him just the third President in history to be impeached, according to multiple Democratic sources.

Remember: Despite speaking with 17 witnesses behind closed doors, including 12 witnesses in just a week of public testimony, Democrats have not obtained crucial documents or spoken with several key officials because the White House and State Department have refused to comply with subpoenas.

That has left top Democrats with a choice: They could fight in court to obtain potential smoking-gun documents and testimony from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton. Or they could move forward with the evidence they have.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has chosen the latter.

In some of her most direct comments to date, Pelosi said Thursday they wouldn’t delay their impeachment push to fight for those witnesses through court battles.

“They keep taking it to court and no, we’re not going to wait until the courts decide,” she said. “That might be information that’s available to the Senate in terms of how far we go and when we go, but we can’t wait for that because again it’s a technique. It’s obstruction of justice, obstruction of Congress, so we cannot let their further obstruction of Congress be an impediment to our honoring our oath of office.”

Pelosi added: “We cannot be at the mercy of the courts.”

Additional reporting by CNN's Lauren Fox, Ali Zaslav, Haley Byr

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