Trump impeachment: President faces historic house vote after panel charges him with abusing office and obstructing Congress

The house could vote on impeachment as soon as Tuesday

Andrew Feinberg
Washington DC
Friday 13 December 2019 16:10 GMT
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Democrats unveil two articles of impeachment against Trump

Donald Trump faces an historic impeachment vote in the House of Representatives after the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against him.

For the third time in the last half-century, committee members voted on Friday to impeach a sitting president, this time on charges of abuse of power for withholding $391m (£304m) in military aid to Ukraine in order to force the Ukrainian president to investigate one of Mr Trump’s political rivals, and with obstruction of congress for his administration’s blanket refusal to cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry.

The panel’s vote to approve articles of impeachment against Mr Trump comes nearly 21 years to the day after it approved articles of impeachment to charge President Bill Clinton with two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice, and one count of abuse of power.

The house is expected to approve both articles of impeachment against Mr Trump when they are brought up for a vote next week.

The committee vote broke down along party lines, with not one Republican voting to approve either article of impeachment. No Republicans are expected to do so when the full House takes up the articles either. That vote that could come as early as Tuesday, but is expected to take place on Wednesday after the House considers a bill to fund the federal government for the 2020 fiscal year.

The only Democrat on the committee to not vote for either was Representative Ted Lieu of California, who is recovering from a medical procedure.

Committee members had been expected to vote on both articles during a Thursday session to consider amendments to the impeachment resolution. But just after 11pm on Thursday, committee chairman Jerrold Nadler surprised both colleagues and spectators alike when, by declaring the session in recess and ordering that committee reconvene on Friday morning.

A judiciary committee staffer told The Independent that Mr Nadler chose to postpone the vote in the interests of transparency.

“Republican judiciary members have complained about process and transparency, yet apparently wanted to force the committee to vote on articles of impeachment in the dark of night. In the interests of doing our constitutional duty in a transparent way for the American public, the chairman scheduled the vote of the articles for 10am Friday morning,” the staffer said.

Immediately following the votes, judiciary committee Republicans took to a nearby bank of television cameras to denounce the entire process as a partisan sham.

“This is really a sad day, big show, everybody got dressed up, really no place to go,” said Texas’s Louie Gohmert, who complained that the real “abuse of power” was on the part of the Democrats.

“There were all kinds of abuses of power, perhaps none more than in the House of Representatives by the majority,” said Mr Gohmert, who enumerated a list of Trumpian betes noires from across the federal government’s law enforcement and intelligence apparatus.

“This is an outrage, it sets the bar for any president of any party for the future to go through three years of hell like this president had,” he continued, adding that he hoped the Republican-controlled senate would call intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff as a witness.

Debbie Lesko, from Arizona, said she had never seen “such an unfair, rigged, railroad job against the president of the United States” in her life, and accused Democrats of of “tearing the country apart” by impeaching Mr Trump with “no proof, no evidence, no crime”.

But Democrat Steve Cohen told The Independent Friday was “a big day” that “will be remembered as a day that certain people stood up for the constitution, the founding fathers, and the rule of law”.

In a pair of emailed statements, top Trump-world figures criticised the development, with Mr Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale calling the vote “just another act in the Democrats’ political theatre”.

“The baseless, sham impeachment is just out-of-control partisan politics and the American people are rejecting it,” Mr Parscale said.

Separately, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham assailed the “desperate charade of an impeachment inquiry”, adding that Mr Trump “looks forward to receiving in the Senate the fair treatment and due process which continues to be disgracefully denied to him by the House”.

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