On Wednesday night, Donald Trump was officially impeached. For the third time in America’s history, the House voted to pass articles of impeachment against a sitting president. The decision came after a lengthy debate about whether or not Trump used the power of his office for personal gain when he allegedly pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Trump’s chief political opponent in the 2020 presidential election.
The president was impeached on two different articles. The first article confirms that the House believes Trump abused the power of his office. The vote went mostly along party lines, with 230 to 197 voting in favor of the article. The second article addressed Trump’s alleged attempts to obstruct justice. That vote went mostly along party lines with 229-118, according to The Washington Post .
Democrat Jared Golden from Maine was the only one to vote for one article and against the other, supporting the article for obstruction of justice but not for the article on abuse of power.
Tulsi Gabbard did not cast a vote on the matter, instead choosing to vote “present.” She was the only Democrat to do so. The Hawaiian representative is currently running for president in 2020 and has maintained a somewhat different line that many of her co-presidential candidates.
None of the Republicans in the House voted against Trump.
The debate prior to the vote took 11 hours, leaving some questioning whether a decision would be rendered on Wednesday or if the process would continue this week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed the grave purpose of the debate, framing the vote within the long history of Democracy in the United States.
“Very sadly, now our founders’ vision of a republic is under threat from actions from the White House,” Pelosi said.
“If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty.”
The Senate will now take up the matter in January, and it is largely expected that the upper body will vote to acquit Trump along party lines.
As The Post points out, the debate and impeachment process has highlighted the intense partisanship that has plagued Congress for the past few decades.
“The intensity and polarization of the debate on the House floor vividly illustrated the extent to which leaders of the two parties now believe entirely different facts and are motivated by different concerns. At times they sounded almost as if they were representing different countries,” The Post wrote.
For his part, Trump has continued in recent days to call the impeachment process a witch hunt and recently asked his followers to “pray for him,” as The Inquisitr reported.
Thank you! https://t.co/YewSlzHxBM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2019
