Trump became the third president in US history to be impeached: what's next

On December 18, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump on the basis of allegations that he had abused the post for his own political gain, as well as obstructed attempts to investigate his actions. Writes about this "Voice of America".

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It is still unknown how quickly the second stage of the procedure will take place in the upper house of the Senate, where, according to forecasts, the republican majority will reject the accusations made by the president.

Republican Senator Leader Mitch McConnell said the case will be high on the agenda in January.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must formally submit documents to the Senate.

Pelosi said that before determining who from the House of Representatives will play the role of prosecutors, she wants to see how senators plan to organize a trial.

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The House of Representatives, which is dominated by members of the Democratic Party, on December 18 supported two points of indictment of Donald Trump, the Republican who became the third president to be impeached for 243 years of US history.

On the first count of 230 members of the House, all Democrats (except two) voted in favor, but 197 (all Republicans) opposed.

As for the second point, 229 (all Democrats, except three) voted in favor, but all Republicans - against.

Immediately after the vote, the White House released a statement calling the incident a “fraudulent impeachment” and the culmination of “one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the country.”

The statement said: “The President is confident that the Senate will restore the order, fairness and due process that were ignored in the House's actions. “He is ready for the next steps and is confident that he will be fully acquitted.”

The House of Representatives, preparing for the vote, discussed impeachment for more than 6 hours.

Democratic lawmakers argued for impeachment. They alternated with Republicans who argued that the president had done nothing wrong when he insisted that Ukraine announce an investigation into next year’s likely rival Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, who served in Ukraine. gas producing company.

Trump also admitted: he insisted that Kiev investigate suspicions about Ukraine’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election, although all U.S. intelligence services rejected these suspicions.

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Trump made these claims directly to the newly elected Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, in a telephone conversation in July after the White House temporarily detained $ 391 million in military assistance to Ukraine.

Trump in September approved the provision of assistance, without waiting for the announcement Zelensky began an investigation into Biden.

During the debate, Republicans called this evidence that Donald Trump did not use military assistance as a lever of pressure on Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly called his July phone call with Zelensky “flawless,” in which he asked the Ukrainian president to “do us a favor.”

As impeachment proceedings unfolded, President Trump insisted that when he said “us,” he meant the United States, not himself.

What is impeachment?

The US Constitution gives Congress the right to remove the incumbent from power if lawmakers decide that the head of state "committed treason, was convicted of bribery or other serious crimes and offenses."

In the history of the United States, the impeachment procedure was announced three times. In 1868, Congress tried to remove President Andrew Johnson from power, and in 1998, impeachment was declared to Bill Clinton. However, the Senate later blocked both of these initiatives, and politicians retained the presidency.

In 1974, Richard Nixon voluntarily left his post because of the threat of impeachment, without waiting for Congress to decide.

What is considered a crime?

The authors of the US constitution considered this concept very broadly, assuming that the reason for impeachment could be not only a formal violation of the law, but also the use by the president of his official position for personal purposes.

In the case of Bill Clinton, for example, the reason for starting the impeachment procedure was not the affair with the White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, but the fact that the US president lied about these relations under oath.

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As Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the US Constitution, clarified in one of his works in 1788, the reason for impeachment could be “use or abuse of public trust” if it was done for political purposes.

How is the impeachment procedure?

Currently, six different House committees are conducting their own investigations into Donald Trump and his businesses.

Prior to this, in the case of Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, the impeachment was initiated by the Legal Committee of the House of Representatives, which conducted an investigation and then recommended that the full composition of the house vote to remove the head of state from power.

The law also allows Congress to create an ad hoc committee that will consider allegations against the president.

Having gathered, as they consider, a sufficient amount of evidence, the congressional committees recommend that the full chamber vote for impeachment. To make this decision, a simple majority of the members of the chamber is enough.

The Senate should then examine these allegations in hearings reminiscent of the present hearing. The head of the US Supreme Court presides at these hearings, his responsibility is to monitor compliance with the procedure, which, however, is established by the senators themselves at their discretion.

A group of members of the House of Representatives represents the prosecution at these hearings, the president is defended by his personal lawyers during the meeting, and senators play the role of a jury.

If two-thirds of the senators consider the president guilty, then the impeachment is considered to have taken place, the head of state leaves his post, and the US vice president takes his place.

Recall again that so far there have not been such precedents in the history of the United States.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• Congressmen became interested in a telephone conversation between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and US President Donald Trump in late July as part of an investigation into whether Trump and his lawyer Rudolf Giuliani tried put pressure on Ukraine in order to help Trump's election campaign in 2020 year.
• Democrats announce formal request for US impeachment, which was triggered by a conversation between Ukrainian and American leaders.
• US Department of State published conversation transcript President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and President of the United States Donald Trump.
• 9 October in the White House officially announced refusal to cooperate with the investigation on the possibility of declaring impeachment to US President Donald Trump, which is held by Democrats in the House of Representatives. The presidential administration considers these accusations to be "baseless" and "unconstitutional."
• 31 October US House of Representatives approved the resolutionaccording to which the investigation into the possibility of impeachment to US President Donald Trump goes to the public stage.
• 13 November US House of Representatives launched an open hearing as part of an investigation into impeachment regarding President Donald trump: 10 television channels broadcast the meeting, 13,8 million Americans watched this broadcast.
• Spotlight on second hearing there were testimonies Marie Jovanovic, former US ambassador to Ukraine. Jovanovic was sent resigned as head of the US diplomatic mission in Kiev in May. Democrats claim that Jovanovic became a victim campaign organized by Rudi Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer.
• 19 November at the House Intelligence Committee have spoken Jennifer Williams, Alexander Windman, Kurt Walker and Tim Morrison.
• 3 December impeachment report accusing President Donald Trump of abuse of power promulgated U.S. House Intelligence Committee.
• 7 December impeachment report опубликовал House Judicial Committee responsible for formulating specific charges.
• Xnumx december democrats unveiled two articles on impeachment are abuse of power and obstruction to Congress.
• Over the centuries-old history of the country, not a single US president has been removed from office by impeachment. Although the real threat of impeachment still forced one president to voluntarily resign. And this case concerned the confrontation between electoral candidates in the USA. Another president, whom they tried to impeach, bought Alaska from Russia. Read about the American impeachment story in our material.
• On December 16, the Legal Committee of the House of Representatives of the US Congress released a report in which recommended the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump, and the Senate to remove him from office.

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