TRUMPSET TOBETHIRD PRESIDENT IMPEACHED
Historic vote over abuse of office charge
BY MIKEY SMITH reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk
DONALD Trump last night faced a historic vote to impeach him as president of the United States.
The US president is charged with abusing his office by asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, his biggest rival in the 2020 election.
But Trump has branded the process a “total sham” – and repeatedly insisted that his July phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was “perfect”.
On Tuesday, he sent House speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter accusing her of engaging in a “perversion of justice” and an “attempted coup”.
Trump wrote on Twitter: “Can you believe that I will be impeached today by the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, AND I DID NOTHING WRONG! A terrible thing. Say a prayer!”
He added that Pelosi “will go down in history as worst Speaker”.
Trump is also accused of obstructing the congressional investigation into the call.
He would be only the third president in history to be impeached if the House of Representatives votes in favour of the move.
It would result in a trial next month in the Senate, where House members would act as prosecutors.
But the upper chamber is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, who have shown little interest in removing him from office.
And conviction requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate, meaning at least 20 Republicans would have to vote to convict the president.
The 17th US president Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House in 1868 for “high crimes and misdemeanours”, after he was accused of breaking the rules to sack his secretary of war Edwin
M Stanton, but he was acquitted by the Senate.
Bill Clinton was also impeached in 1998, charged with lying about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Again, the Senate acquitted the president and he served out his term.
Republicans signalled as soon as the session began that they intended to do everything possible to stall the proceedings.
They called for the House to adjourn immediately after the morning prayer and pledge of allegiance.
Then they presented a motion accusing senior Democrats of violating House rules.
Republicans lost votes on both issues on the House floor.
In the July telephone call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son Hunter.
He also raised a discredited theory promoted by the president that US Democrats conspired with Ukraine to meddle in the 2016 election.
Hunter Biden had joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was US vice-president.