- Lifestyle & Sports
- 19 Dec 19
The House of Representatives voted yesterday evening to impeach President Donald Trump on account of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The vote was bitterly divisive, resulting in 230 votes for impeachment and 197 against on account of abuse of power. 229 Representatives voted for impeachment on account of obstruction of Congress, to the 198 against.
American President Donald J. Trump has been impeached in a divisive vote in the House of Representatives, nearly exactly along party lines. 85 days after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced she was launching an impeachment inquiry, the House voted to impeach the President on two accounts.
The vote came nearly entirely along party lines, with only two Democrats voting against abuse of power charges, three against obstruction, and no Republicans voting for either article. Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey made news last week when he announced he would not vote for impeachment and was planning to join to the Republican party in defiance of the vote.
After six hours of intense debates on the House floor, Representatives voted to pass two articles of impeachment. The Senate will now hold a trial, the result of which will either be to acquit Trump of the charges, or remove him from office. In order to remove the President, a two-thirds majority must vote to do so.
Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell has vowed to make the Senate trial as speedy as possible and has rejected Minority Leader Democrat Chuck Schumer's request to call witnesses from the White House staff including acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Chairman of the House Rules Committee, Democrat Jim McGovern, set the guidelines for the vote. Speaking with him earlier this year, he expressed his disgust with the President's conduct. "The president asked a foreign power to make up political dirt on a potential opponent. He abuses the power of his office, threatens our national security & undermines our constitution which he swore to uphold. As I have said before, he is unfit for office & should be impeached."
The House of Representatives, the lower of the legislative bodies in the United States' bicameral system, passed two articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power, and a second for obstruction of Congress.
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"Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election," declares the first article. "He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage."
"In his conduct of the office of President of the United States [...] Donald J. Trump has directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its 'sole Power of Impeachment'," reads the second article. "President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution."
The Senate trial will be announced in the coming days, and is all-but-sure to end in the acquittal of Donald Trump. The Republican majority in the Senate has vowed to protect their President, despite numerous claims from retired party officials to vote with their conscience rather than their party.
"I’m tired of reds, blues, and purples," said 1988 Democratic Presidential Nominee Michael Dukakis in a previously-unpublished excerpt from his interview with Hot Press this summer.
"The guy’s a fraud... He’s just a colossal fraud," Dukakis said of Trump. "We need new leadership and people who care deeply. And we’ve got to get out there in the next year-and-a-half and make sure that we retire him permanently from public life and get ourselves a president and a Congress that’s willing to act on this."