Good Wednesday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing.

Stay tuned after the show for a message from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

It's finally happening. The House will begin impeachment proceedings against the president for the third time in American history.

We don't know what he'll be impeached for. when you aren't sure when, and we don't know

what the whistleblower has on President Donald Trump or how significant it is.

But what we do know is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership gave into a restive base

which was demanding Trump be held accountable for a series of what they consider brazen acts.

So yesterday was seismic, but it also was, in some ways, a bit meaningless.

After a long day of standing in the Capitol Basement Tuesday, our colleagues Kyle Cheney and Andrew DeZadario,

posed this very interesting question in the Politico corner of the press gallery. What exactly

did Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement that the House was launching an impeachment inquiry into

President Donald Trump change? Not much at all, they argued. At first, we told them they were wrong.

Matter for thinking about it for a minute, we decided there's a healthy bit of truth to Cheney and Desiderio's take.

Pelosi's statement didn't actually change a whole lot. It was mostly window dressing. Here's why.

House committees have been investigating Trump for months. The Judiciary Committee was always readying to draft articles of impeachment. They were always trying to finish it up before

2020. An impeachment inquiry is just a name. It's not an official process that the House has now begun.

There will be no vote on the floor to start the impeachment inquiry process. There's no magic

unleashed now that Pelosi said she's begun an impeachment inquiry. So in many ways, there's

nothing new here. But at the same time, everything has changed politically. The entire universe has

shifted for House Democrats. For months, the leadership was trying to stave off impeachment because

they thought it was unwise politically, divisive, and unnecessary. Now the leadership is full bore behind it, and the entire caucus is rowing toward a process

aimed at removing the president of the United States for how he handled interactions with

...