Trump impeachment: House impeaches president in historic vote along party lines
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The House has voted to impeach Donald Trump, making him the third president in American history to receive such a censure.
After roughly eight hours of debate, the House of Representatives gathered to vote and ultimately charged him with abusing the power of his office by attempting to extort a political favour from Ukraine. The House then voted on a second article of impeachment, approving formal charges that Mr Trump had obstructed Congress during the subsequent congressional investigation into his conduct.
The Senate will now take up the approved impeachment articles in the new year.
Defiant as ever, Mr Trump walked onstage at a rally in Michigan just as the House began voting — and was bragging about his Space Force and mocking stock market jitters as the first article of impeachement was approved. Before it became official, as the vote crept towards approving the first article of impeachment, Mr Trump was interrupted by a protester, who he suggested was treated too well by security forces — and that they should have been tougher on her.
Before the vote and rally, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius described a letter sent by Mr Trump to House speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday as “the most unpresidential presidential document ever written” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe after rallies backing the impeachment process were held in cities across the country on Tuesday evening.
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The House is now voting on the second impeachment article. They are conducting a five minute vote.
Mr Trump is now mocking Bill Clinton, who he jokes calls his wife Hillary, "Crooked" as a first name.
He jokes that the former president warned Ms Clinton about Michigan and Wisconsin, but that she didn't listen.
The evocation of the former president is mildly interesting, considering Mr Clinton is the most recent president to be impeached before Mr Trump.
Impeachment be damned, Mr Trump hasn't missed a step tonight. He's now moved on to mocking Pete Buttigieg, and wondering aloud how to pronounce his last name.
Mr Trump is finally getting to the impeachment, calling the effort a "political suicide march" for Democrats.
"They've been trying to impeach me since day one. They've been trying to impeach me since before I ran," Mr Trump says.
Mr Trump now dipping into his hatred of the news media, talking about ratings, referring to the company "Comcast" as "Commie Cast".
Mr Trump casting the impeachment as "the Washington swamp" being able to "veto the results of the election."
"They shouldn't even be allowed to have impeachment," Mr Trump complains, saying the whole thing was based on fake intel.
Mr Trump here is just bringing up conspiracy theories to attack the impeachment, including claims that his 2016 campaign was targeted for political spying (which has been disproved).
Trump re-election campaign manager Brad Parscale has released a statement on tonight’s vote:
“The contrast between President Trump and the Democrats couldn’t be more clear. While the President rallied with tens of thousands of citizens in Michigan and celebrated the greatness and success of America, Democrats in D.C. completed their cold, calculated, and concocted 3-year impeachment sham and voted against 63 million Americans. And the only part of the vote that was bipartisan was in opposition. The President is just getting stronger while support for the Democrats’ political theater has faded. Undeterred, President Trump keeps racking up victories for the American people, who will respond by resoundingly re-electing him next November.”
Back in Washington, Nancy Pelosi just made the second article of impeachment official.
"Article Two is adopted," she says.
Mr Trump meanwhile is still rambling about the 2016 election.
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