Trump Impeached for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress

“I’m only the third president to be impeached. Let me repeat that: the third. Tremendous. It’s a tremendous honor. I can’t say I’ve ever seen an impeachment quite as impressive as mine. It’s the best impeachment America has ever had. Truly great. You’ll never see one as amazing. Believe me.”

 

Here’s hoping the Senate doesn’t fuck this up.

 

they will

 

This is super awesome, but can someone help me understand what this first-step of impeachment actually accomplishes, if anything? Just trying to understand the process.

 

There is no way they won't lol. At the very least, this makes the Republican party look BAD and will hopefully persuade a lot of people who might have voted for trump in 2020 to vote democrat. Anything to alter the public opinion and bring light to the absolute lunacy and incompetence of this administration is a win.

 

Let's say the senate comes through - can we take Pence with him? A Pence presidency sounds scary

 

Nothing is going to change

 

Even if the Senate doesn’t vote for him to be removed, the fact that history will forever show that he was impeached is satisfying.

 

I'm going to love talking about this at Christmas gatherings with a mostly right-wing family

 

I’ve had to unfollow one of my aunts. Her Facebook looks like Trump’s twitter page.

 

This isn't the first step of impeachment. The first step was the announcement of the Impeachment Inquiry, in conjunction with the investigations that were already ongoing. Once the inquiry for the "potential charges" was completed, then the articles of impeachment were drawn up, which states and describes the charges levied against the president once the investigations were conducted to provide evidence and testimony that verifies the charges. In this case, the charges were specifically "Abuse of Power" (for soliciting interference from Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens) and "Obstruction of Congress" (for defying Congressional Subpoenas, as well as telling first-hand witnesses such as Mulvaney, Pompeo, etc. to defy them). The articles were drawn up and approved by the Judiciary Committed by a majority vote, then moved to a full House of Representative vote. The full house voted and approved each article separately last night.

As it stands now, the approved articles will be sent to the senate, where a trial will be held to determine whether the president is guilty of the charges or not, in which the senators act as the jurors. Now, as Mitch McConnell, the majority Senate leader, who would be dictating the final "rules" of the trial, has already stated that he will not act as an impartial juror, and is directly collaborating with the White House on what the rules of the trial will be, and going as far to state there will be no witnesses. There is currently a potential for the House of Representatives to withhold the Articles of Impeachment from the Senate until the rules of the trial are on record based on an agreement with the majority and minority parties. This recommendation came from lawyers and legal scholars.

I hope this gives you a better understanding on where the country is at in terms of the impeachment process! I have some additional reading if you want to understand the rules of the Senate trial, and why there's not a lot of clarity on how the trial will proceed:
Imagining a Senate Trial: Reading the Senate Rules of Impeachment Litigation

 

Important to note (or maybe not): *if* Trump wins a second term and continues to break the law, he can be impeached again. And, if Dems keep their House majority and also take one in the Senate, the Senate trial is a lot less of a question mark.

 

The blue wave vote really helped. There were some democratic representatives (after a period of republican) that ended up voting to impeach. That shows how voting matters.

 

Yep - I have this conversation with everyone that says they’re disillusioned with voting. At least vote in local and Senate/House elections even if you don’t want to vote for the President.

 

It ain't going to the Senate as things stand today, the progress would be undone the moment it does

 

Pelosi playing hardball until there's a fair, or somewhat fair, trial is what I wanted to hear after the house vote. Good on her. Those republican senate seats are so fucked up. Fuck'em all. They are pure evil. Especially how they have zero shame in how they're collaborating on handling this situation while admitting it to media.

Oh...and Tulsi? WTF what was that?

 

Tulsi and Jeff Van Drew deserve to walk off into the sunset together. I’m so embarrassed JVD is my Congressman.

 

Good thing it won’t make it past the senate.

 

Good for who?

 

The country. And please don’t flip out because we have opposing views on politics.

 

Yikes.

 

Must be a joke.