Trump - the Third President in American History to be Impeached by the House
On Wednesday, December 18, the US House approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump, making him the third president in history to face removal by the Senate.
The first article of impeachment that charged Trump with abuse of power passed on a party-line vote, 230–197, with only two democrats opposing it. The first article accused Donald Trump of corruptly using the levers of government to solicit election assistance from Ukraine. The Democratic-led House, with three opposing from the party, then passed the second article 229 to 198, charging Trump with obstruction of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with the oversight investigation. Not a single Republican voted for any of the articles to pass.
Although divided on the subject of the President’s impeachment, the Republicans and Democrats still agreed on one thing: that it was a sad day for America. The Democrats coordinated to dress in black to show their sorrow, while the Republicans reported that the impeachment of President Trump was “unfair”, “dangerous”, and “harmful to the country” (Ohio Republican Jim Jordan). The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Doug Collins, additionally told ‘Fox & Friends’ that the Democrats wanted only to impeach Trump to prevent him from doing his “amazing” work. When the process was over and articles had already passed, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House from the Democratic Party said that it was “a very sad day for the Constitution of the United States,” the New Yorker reported.
Republicans, and Trump himself, denied that he had done anything wrong. Trump was at a "Merry Christmas" campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, when the vote was conducted.
"After three years of sinister witch hunts, hoaxes and scams, the House Democrats are trying to nullify the ballots of tens of millions of patriotic Americans," Trump said, delaying his appearance to watch the vote.
Trump has shown no remorse for his actions. And it is interesting that although he is now trying to play it cool, he has spoken about the horrors of it in the past. During the first term of Barack Obama’s presidency from 2009 to 2017, there were attempts to impeach him. Now-in-office President Trump was one of those who spoke out against the stains of impeachment.
CNN's Kfile unearthed a 2014 Fox News appearance in which he was shown saying: "He would be a mess. He would be thinking about nothing but. It would be a horror show for him. It would be an absolute embarrassment. It would go down on his record permanently," Trump said.
Trump is the third President in American history to be impeached by the House. The first was Andrew Johnson in March of 1868. The House formally adopted the articles of impeachment and forwarded them to the United States Senate for adjudication. In 1998, on December 19, President Clinton was impeached by the House for lying under oath about an extramarital affair, which hurt his family and all of America. Both of the Presidents were later acquitted by the Senate.
The fight about whether President Trump should be made to leave the office or not now heads to the Senate, where, as the New Yorker writes “the Republican majority is expected to offer another all but unanimous G.O.P. vote to acquit Trump, following a trial that has little prospect of featuring a single witness.”
But Pelosi is not going to send the case over to the Senate just yet, she said on Wednesday night. The House Speaker said that “we’ll see,” if the Republicans in the other chamber are prepared for a fair trial. For now, American society remains as divided as the political parties of the country.
By Nini Dakhundaridze
Image source: Global News