Trump to face impeachment vote after House panel approves charges

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WASHINGTON, Dec 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump stood on the
verge of impeachment Friday after a House panel approved charges he abused
his power and obstructed Congress, setting up a historic vote in the chamber
next week.

In a grave moment for a deeply divided nation, members of the Judiciary
Committee voted along party lines to approve two articles of impeachment
against the president for committing acts that met the constitutional
threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The panel recommended by 23 votes to 17 that the Democratic-led House
ratify both articles, ahead of a vote by the entire chamber that is expected
to make Trump only the third US president in history to be impeached, after
Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998.

“Today is a solemn and sad day,” committee chairman Jerry Nadler said after
the vote, which was called with surprising speed the day after a rancorous
14-hour debate.

“Yet we must meet the challenge posed by a president who puts himself
before the country, whose actions pose a direct threat to the integrity of
our elections, and to the separation of powers that safeguard our liberty.”

One article charges the president with abuse of power for conditioning $391
million in critical military aid and a White House meeting on Ukraine
launching investigations into Democrats ahead of the 2020 presidential
election.

The other charges him with obstructing Congress for refusing to cooperate
with the inquiry, a development Democrats say is unprecedented in American
history.

Nadler said the House will act “expeditiously” to vote on the charges.

The chamber’s Rules Committee will convene Tuesday morning to lay out
guidelines for the impeachment debate and eventual vote.

Impeachment would trigger a January trial in the Senate, where the solid
Republican majority is expected to protect the president by voting against
conviction and removal.

An ever-defiant Trump, who insists there is a witch hunt against him,
called the panel’s impeachment vote “an embarrassment to our country.”

He also insisted the divisive process will be “very good for me
politically” as Americans face a presidential election next November.

But while the White House said Trump looks forward to a fair trial and due
process in the Senate, the president lashed out at Democratic “fools” and
branded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “liar.”

– ‘Travesty for America’ –

The panel’s fractious debate session Thursday came to a surprising late-
night end when Nadler abruptly postponed the votes.

Startled Republicans accused Nadler of running a “kangaroo court,” but
Democrats said they did not want to be accused of taking such momentous
action against the president in the dead of night.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who held up a pocket copy of the US
Constitution as she voted, said she was not acting against Trump as a person.

“It is a vote for the Constitution and for ‘We the People,'” she said,
quoting the charter’s preamble.

But Republicans have circled the wagons around the president, insisting he
has done no wrong and accusing Democrats of dangerous overreach.

Republican Debbie Lesko emerged from the ornate hearing room where she cast
her vote calling the process a “travesty for America.”

“I have never, in my entire life, seen such an unfair, rigged railroad job
against the president of the United States.”

Fellow Republican Matt Gaetz warned that Democrats were eager to oust Trump
“with no direct evidence” of criminal behavior.

“For Democrats, impeachment is their drug, it is their obsession,” he said.

Both sides were already girding for Trump’s trial in the Senate, where
conviction and removal would require two-thirds of votes.

“There is zero chance that the president will be removed from office,” said
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose Republicans hold 53 of the 100
seats.

McConnell also told Fox News he will be in lockstep with Trump,
“coordinating with the White House counsel” regardless of his expected role
as impartial juror in the trial.

– Senate trial –

Trump has signaled to aides that he wants a full-throated defense in the
Senate, with witnesses testifying in person.

Republican leaders, mindful of political fallout, indicated they would
rather not see the process turn into a drawn-out spectacle.

“I’ll do long or short,” Trump said Friday when asked whether he wants an
extended trial.

But he added that he “wouldn’t mind a long process” because he wants to
hear testimony from the whistleblower who triggered the process earlier this
year.

Pelosi launched the impeachment inquiry in September after an unidentified
whistleblower warned in a complaint that Trump, on a telephone call with his
Ukrainian counterpart, used the power of his office to “solicit interference”
from the foreign leader in the 2020 election.

In the July 25 call Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch an
investigation into former US vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s potential
election rival.