Dec. 18 (UPI) — The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump, the third time the action has been taken in U.S. history.
With a vote of 230-197, the House voted mostly along party lines in agreement to Article I of Impeachment charging Trump with having abused the powers of the presidency.
Trump becomes the third president in U.S. history to be impeached after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described President Donald Trump as “an ongoing threat to our national security” earlier Wednesday as she opened up the debate on two articles of impeachment against the leader.
She said the founding fathers’ vision for the United States was “under threat” by White House actions.
“It is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections, the basis of our democracy,” Pelosi said.
“If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty.”
She was the first to speak Wednesday morning as the House of Representatives began debating two articles of impeachment against Trump.
The House rules committee set the agenda on Tuesday, allowing 6 hours of debate with no amendments as lawmakers weighed charges that say Trump is a threat to national security because he lobbied a foreign government to interfere in the U.S. electoral process, and then tried to hinder Congress in its subsequent investigation.
The House vote sends both articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial.
Wednesday’s debate time was expected to be equally divided between the House’s Democratic majority and Republican minority, overseen by House judiciary committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler and ranking Republican Rep. Doug Collins.
Collins used his time to argue that Trump committed no crimes.
“There’s no bribery, no extortion, no wire fraud, no obstruction of justice anywhere in these articles,” he said. “This is the first time in history a president will be impeached without a single allegation of criminality.”
Collins said abuse of power is a “subjective concept that means whatever any member of Congress wants it to mean.”
The House also may consider a resolution to appoint and authorize impeachment managers for a Senate trial.
Both articles stem from Trump’s dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last summer, during which Trump pressed for investigations of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company for five years.
The crux of the Democrats’ argument is that Trump demanded Zelensky publicly investigate the Bidens in a bid to discredit the former vice president and ruin his 2020 campaign — and that Trump threatened to block hundreds of millions of dollars in Congress-approved aid for Ukraine and deny a White House visit for Zelensky until he got what he wanted.
On Tuesday, Trump sent a six-page letter to Pelosi that accused the Democrats of “declaring open war on American democracy” and attempting to mount a coup.
