House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) admitted in public Thursday evening that his panel is conducting “formal impeachment proceedings” against President Trump.

He said the Judiciary Committee will decide likely by the end of the year whether to recommend bringing articles of impeachment to the House floor.

“This is formal impeachment proceedings,” Nadler told CNN’s Erin Burnett Thursday evening. “We are investigating all the evidence, gathering the evidence. And we will [at the] conclusion of this — hopefully by the end of the year — vote to vote articles of impeachment to the House floor. Or we won’t. That’s a decision that we’ll have to make. But that’s exactly the process we’re in right now.”

Nadler said it was important not to get lost in the “semantics” of the discussion and said while the probe would end with some type of vote on whether the recommend impeachment, right now the committee is interested in “investigating the evidence.” A big part of the committee’s investigation

“The fact is, we are doing an investigation. We are investigating the facts, investigating the evidence,” Nadler said. “We are going into court to get witnesses all with a view toward deciding and recommending to the House whether to impeach the President.”