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 has now been gaveled into session, starting with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, has moved that the House adjourn. The motion is now being voted on. Expect these types of delaying tactics from Republicans throughout the day.
The Republican motion to adjourn has failed.
Spotted on the floor: House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-New York. Rep. Nadler was absent during proceedings in the House Rules Committee yesterday due to a family emergency.
Trump tweets support from Doug Collins, Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, Jim Jordan and Jeanine Pirro
Since we last heard from President Trump on Twitter, he has quoted Doug Collins even more extensively, the Georgia Republican spinning the Trump story as the sad tale of a wide-eyed idealist who arrived in DC simply hoping to drain the swamp and make people's lives better until he was pursued at every turn by Nancy Pelosi, the Wicked Witch of the West, and her heartless Democratic winged monkeys. Or something. It's nonsense at any rate.
He's also been retweeting such partisan ne're do wells as Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, Jim Jordan and Jeanine Pirro, very much as you'd expect.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, has introduced a privileged resolution alleging that House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-California and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-New York have abused their authority as chairman. This, too, can be expected to fail.
When the House votes on impeachment today, Mr Trump will be the third president in US history to face such a fate.
We took a look at the details of what happened last time around, 21 years ago, when Bill Clinton got caught up in his own, very different scandal. Take a look:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland has moved to table Rep. McCarthy’s resolution. The House is now voting on whether to do so.
Why won't Trump be removed from office, though?
Anyone who isn't steeped in the details of impeachment may not know that today's vote won't mean that vice president Mike Pence will step just as soon as Trump is impeached.
Instead, the Senate will hold a trial to determine whether the president actually committed high crimes and misdemeanors. We'll link below to what, exactly, the Constitution says about impeachment below, but here's the bare math of why Trump isn't likely going anywhere: a grand total of 67 senators are needed to remove a president after impeachment, and that means quite a few Republicans would have to vote against the president.
Right now there are 45 Democratic senators, and two independent senators. There are 53 Republican senators (which is why Mitch McConnell has such considerable sway over the proceedings there). That means both independents and 19 Republicans would have to vote against Trump (not to mention all Democrats).
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