The House of Representatives has approved two articles of impeachment against President Donald J. Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. No Republican House member voted in favor of either article. Democrats Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota voted against both articles, while Jared Golden of Maine voted against the article regarding the obstruction of Congress. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who’s also running for president, voted present on both articles.
The full House vote came less than a week after the House Judiciary Committee voted 23 to 17 to advance the two articles of impeachment, according to the New York Times.
As the Times explains:
“The charges accuse Mr. Trump of pressuring Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his political rival, and an unsubstantiated theory that Democrats conspired with Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election. He did so, Democrats say, using as leverage nearly $400 million in security assistance for Ukraine’s fight against Russia and a coveted White House meeting for its president.
Mr. Trump then sought to conceal the scheme from Congress, the Judiciary Committee charged, ordering unprecedented, across-the-board stonewalling of its investigation unlike any ‘in the history of the republic.’ It amounted to an effort by the president to undermine the separation of powers and limit his accountability, the panel said.”
Trump is now expected to stand trial in the Senate next year; the Senate must convict him with a two-thirds majority in order to remove him from office. With the current Republican-controlled Senate, it is likely Trump will remain in office and be the Republican candidate in the 2020 presidential election.
Adding to his infamous resume, Trump has now become the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, joining Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, who were both impeached and then acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon was also expected to be impeached after the Watergate scandal and instead decided to resign, becoming the only president to have ever resigned from office. In the history of the United States, no president has ever been removed from office.
The day before the House impeachment vote was expected to take place, Trump wrote a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, asking her to stop the impeachment proceedings. Trump wrote, “This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting both. You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party. History will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment charade.”