Trump impeachment: House impeaches president in historic vote along party lines
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Your support makes all the difference.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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Half of US military disapproves of Trump, new poll finds
Very much like the country itself, the US military is currently sharply divided on the question of Donald J Trump's performance as commander-in-chief, with almost 50 per cent of troops currently serving disapproving, according to a new poll responding to his sudden withdrawal from Syria and the ongoing construction of the Mexican border wall.
A poll of 1,630 active duty troops conducted by US forces publication Military Times in conjunction with Syracuse University found 49.9 per cent of respondents had an unfavourable view of the president - with 45.1 per cent expressing their view as very unfavourable.
Vincent Wood reports.
Trump refuses to back resolution recognising Armenian genocide
The administration has rejected a Senate resolution recognising the Armenian genocide, just a day after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to recognise the killing of Native Americans in retaliation.
Here's Clark Mindock on Trump's latest craven concession to Erdogan.
A lesson from history
Ahead of today's landmark vote, here's Clark Mindock with a timely look back at the Bill Clinton impeachment of 1998.
'Have you actually read the transcript?'
Some beautiful work here from Jordan Klepper on The Daily Show, asking Trump supporters queuing in the rain for his recent rally in Hershey, Pennsylvannia, whether they've actually read the transcript, as the president repeatedly insists everyone must.
If you want to have a look over it yourself, you can do so below.
"I would like you to do us a favour though..."
Devin Nunes pushes Trumpist conspiracy theories on Fox on Impeachment Eve
Trump goon and California GOP congressman Devin Nunes was on Fox News last night, spinning the same tired excuses and FBI-related conspiracies he offered throughout the public phase of the inquiry when he sat alongside Adam Schiff attempting to derail the processing.
The president was no doubt watching this sorry display, hence his aforementioned tweets on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Justice Department watchdog's recent exonerating report.
President erupts in belligerent, misspelled tweet hours before impeachment vote
Trump is up and tweeting, quoting Fox and Friends like any other day.
He also appears to have deleted and then reposted the following rant after initally misspelling "should" as "shoild" in the original draft.
Here's our breaking story.
Trump's Pelosi letter 'may be the most unpresidential presidential document ever written'
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has told MSNBC's Morning Joe that Trump's letter to Pelosi "may be the most unpresidential presidential document ever written".
Apparently the odious Stephen Miller had a hand in drafting it, which just says it all.
Here's Trump's latest Fox quote for your pleasure, this time quoting ranking Judiciary Commitee Republican Doug Collins, who was disruptive to the point of near-total incoherence at last week's hearings as he sought to thwart his chairman, Democrat Jerrold Nadler, on the president's behalf:
Morning shows set the scene on historic day
If you're just joining us, here's how the morning shows are setting the scene on a genuinely historic day in DC.
This, from Fox and Friends, was presumably intended to be complimentary.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Trump 'is not a lawyer'
Asked whether Donald Trump could petition the Supreme Court to stop his impeachment, legendary American justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg answered simply: "The president is not a lawyer. He's not law trained."
Speaking in a wide-ranging conversation with the BBC's Razia Iqbal, Ginsburg also implied that senators who have already expressed their verdict in the president's likely impeachment trial should be disqualified from acting as jurors in the upper chamber in January.
"Should a trial be impartial? Of course. That's the job of a judge to be impartial."
Alex Woodward has more.
Good morning from the U.S. Capitol, where at 9.00 am, the House of Representatives will begin the debate that -- barring anything unexpected -- will end with Donald Trump becoming just the third American president to be impeached by the House of Representatives.
The first hour of the day will be spent on debating the rules which will govern how the rest of the day will unfold. Once the rule for debate is agreed to, the House will spend six hours debating House Resolution 755, "Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors".
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