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Why Is Trump Getting Impeached

Drafted Articles Of Impeachment

Why is Trump on trial? – A really simple guide to impeachment

Within hours of the Capitol attack, members of Congress began to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump as president. Several representatives began the process of independently drafting various articles of impeachment. Of these attempts, the first to become public were those of Representative Ilhan Omar ” rel=”nofollow”> DMN-5) who drafted and introduced articles of impeachment against Trump.

Representative David Cicilline ” rel=”nofollow”> DRI-1) separately drafted an article of impeachment. The text was obtained by CNN on January 8. On Twitter, Cicilline acknowledged the coauthorship of Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin, and said that “more than 110” members had signed on to this article. “Article I: Incitement of Insurrection” accuses Trump of having “willfully made statements that encouragedand foreseeably resulted inimminent lawless action at the Capitol”. As a result of incitement by Trump, “a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol” and “engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts”. On January 10, it was announced that the bill had gathered 210 cosponsors in the House.

After Speaking Out On Impeachment Herrera Beutler Heads Toward Clash With Her Party

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” he said, “and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”

McConnell rebuked Trump for his actions after the insurrection as well.

“He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored,” he continued.

“No. Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily happily as the chaos unfolded,” he said. “Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in serious danger.”

But McConnell said that the process of impeachment and conviction is a “limited tool” and that he believes Trump is not “constitutionally eligible for conviction.”

“The Constitution gives us a particular role. This body is not invited to act as the nation’s overarching moral tribunal,” he said.

He said that the text of the question of constitutionality is “legitimately ambiguous” and that he “respects” his colleagues for reaching either the conclusion to acquit or convict.

Seven Republicans broke ranks with their party in voting for a conviction.

Michael van der Veen, defense lawyer for former President Donald Trump, gives closing arguments during Trump’s second impeachment trial on February 13, 2021.hide caption

How The Ukraine Invasion Connects To Trump’s First Impeachment And Where The Players Are Now

The former president is sounding off about Russia’s attacks barely two years after he faced charges of abusing his power by withholding aid for Kyiv.

In this Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019 photo, President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York. | Evan Vucci, File/AP Photo

02/24/2022 02:36 PM EST

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As Russia bombards Ukraine, Donald Trump is wading into the conflict barely two years after he faced an impeachment trial on charges that he abused his power by essentially extorting the Kyiv government and Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump was acquitted in February 2020 after the House impeached him, alleging he held hostage hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid in order to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including his eventual successor, Joe Biden. The aid was eventually provided, but not before a crisis that rattled two continents and desperate pleas by Zelenskyys government for help fending off the very Russian aggression that now threatens to topple him from power in Ukraine.

Then-President Trumps treatment of Ukraine alarmed some of his own top advisers at the time, particularly when coupled with his relatively warm praise of Putin which continues today. At the time, Zelenskyy had desperately sought and asked Trump for a White House meeting, an effort to bolster his mandate to confront Russia. The meeting never came.

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Trump Impeached For ‘inciting’ Us Capitol Riot In Historic Second Charge

Donald Trump has become the first president in US history to be impeached twice, after being charged with “incitement of insurrection” over last week’s deadly storming of Congress.

The House of Representatives accused Mr Trump of encouraging violence with his false claims of election fraud.

He now faces trial in the upper chamber, the Senate, but not before he leaves office next Wednesday.

Senators can vote to bar him from ever holding public office again.

In a video released after the vote in the House on Wednesday, Mr Trump called on his followers to remain peaceful, without mentioning his impeachment.

“Violence and vandalism have no place in our country… No true supporter of mine would ever endorse political violence,” he said, striking a sombre and conciliatory tone.

The FBI has warned of possible armed protests planned for Washington DC and all 50 US state capitals in the days before Joe Biden, a Democrat, is inaugurated as the new US president.

Stacey Plaskett: Trump Trial Needed ‘more Senators With Spines Not More Witnesses’

Trevor Noah: Trump will have the smallest impeachment of all time ...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and West Virginia GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito both cited constitutional concerns in their decision to vote to acquit Trump.

Virgin Islands House Del. Stacey Plaskett, another impeachment manager, told NPR’s Weekend Edition that they didn’t “reverse course” on witnesses but instead succeeded in adding Herrera Beutler’s statement describing a conversation between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Trump as the attack was ongoing.

“I know that people have a lot of angst and they can’t believe that the Senate did what they did . But what we needed were senators, more senators with spines, not more witnesses,” Plaskett said.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close ally of President Biden, reportedly urged House managers to relent on witnesses. He told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that spending “months fighting over witnesses” wouldn’t have been worth it.

“What the House managers needed wasn’t more witnesses or more evidence, what we all needed was more Republican courage,” he said. “This was the most bipartisan verdict in American history, a strong rebuke to President Trump, but frankly at the end of the day, the trial had reached its natural conclusion.”

Seven Republican senators voted to convict Trump, after 10 GOP House members voted to impeach Trump for inciting the mob that breached the U.S. Capitol.

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Senate Acquits Trump In Impeachment Trial Again

A majority of senators voted to hold Trump guilty on one charge of inciting an insurrection, but the 57-43 tally fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction. In all, seven Republicans voted to convict the former president, making Saturday’s vote the most bipartisan in a presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history.

“While the final vote did not lead to a conviction, the substance of the charge is not in dispute,” Biden said. “Even those opposed to the conviction, like Senate Minority Leader McConnell, believe Donald Trump was guilty of a ‘disgraceful dereliction of duty’ and ‘practically and morally responsible for provoking’ the violence unleashed on the Capitol.”

Until his comments on Saturday, Biden had remained mostly silent about his predecessor’s impeachment, telling reporters last week that he did not even plan to watch the trial. He neither fully supported nor opposed the vote by the House of Representatives last month to impeach Trump, saying he wanted to leave the matter up to Congress. He also declined to say whether the Senate should move to convict.

What You Need To Know

  • The Senate acquitted former President Trump in his historic second impeachment trial, voting that Trump is not guilty of inciting the deadly Capitol riot.
  • Seven Republicans joined the 50 Democrats to find him guilty, but they fell short of a two-thirds majority needed to convict.
  • Trump is the only President in US history to ever be impeached twice and the first to have his impeachment tried in the Senate while out of office.

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Proponents Say Impeachment Is Worthwhile Even Though Trump Has Only Days Left In Office

While the House moved with remarkable speed to impeach Mr. Trump, the Senate trial to determine whether to remove him cannot begin until Jan. 19, his final full day in office. That means any conviction would almost certainly not be completed until after he leaves the White House.

Democrats have argued that Mr. Trumps offense using his power as the nations leader and commander in chief to incite an insurrection against the legislative branch is so grave that it must be addressed, even with just a few days remaining in his term. To let it go unpunished, Democrats argued, would set a dangerous precedent of impunity for future presidents.

Is there little time left? Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said during the debate. Yes. But it is never too late to do the right thing.

Republicans, many of whom voted to overturn the election results, have claimed that going through the impeachment process so late in Mr. Trumps term will foster unnecessary division and that the country should move on from last weeks siege.

Agreement Reached To Avoid Witnesses In Trump’s Impeachment Trial

President Donald Trump is the first to be impeached twice

The heart of Trump’s legal team’s argument was supposed to be that theSenate did not have jurisdiction to take up the trial of a former federal official. That was certainly part of it and wasa message that resonated with the overwhelming majority of GOP senators.

In a vote on the first day of the trial, for example, 44 Republicans voted to say it was unconstitutional for the Senate to try a president after he left office. That’s despite a 145-year-old precedent in which the Senate voted that it was constitutional to try a former Cabinet official for impeachment.

The constitutionality argument allowed many Republican senators to sidestep the merits of the case against Trump. That’s even though the lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on Thursday closed his side’s arguments by imploring senators that the constitutionality of the trial had been resolved by the earlier vote.

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Donald Trump Acquitted In Second Impeachment Trial

  • Senate fails to achieve two-thirds majority needed to convict
  • Trump thanks supporters and complaints about witch-hunt

Donald Trump has been acquitted by the Senate in his second impeachment trial for his role in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol a verdict that underscores the sway Americas 45th president still holds over the Republican party even after leaving office.

After just five days of debate in the chamber that was the scene of last months invasion, a divided Senate fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to convict high crimes and misdemeanors. A conviction would have allowed the Senate to vote to disqualify him from holding future office.

Seven Republicans joined every Democrat to declare Trump guilty on the charge of incitement of insurrection after his months-long quest to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden and its deadly conclusion on 6 January, when Congress met to formalize the election results.

The 57-43 vote was most bipartisan support for conviction ever in a presidential impeachment trial. The outcome, which was never in doubt, reflected both the still raw anger of senators over Trumps conduct as his supporters stormed the Capitol last month and the vice-like grip the defeated president still holds over his party.

Trumps acquittal came after grave warnings from the nine Democratic House impeachment managers, serving as prosecutors, that Trump continued to pose a threat to the nation and democracy itself.

The Senate Trial Wont Start Until After Biden Becomes President

Democrats who control the House can choose when to send their article of impeachment to the Senate, at which point that chamber would have to immediately move to begin the trial. But because the Senate is not scheduled to hold a regular session until Jan. 19, even if the House immediately transmitted the charge to the other side of the Capitol, an agreement between Senate Republican and Democratic leaders would be needed to take it up before then.

Mr. McConnell said on Wednesday that he would not agree to do so, meaning that the article could not be taken up until the day before Mr. Biden is sworn in. Since time is needed for the Senate to set the rules for an impeachment trial, that means the proceeding probably would not start until after Mr. Biden was president, and Democrats had operational control of the Senate.

Given the rules, procedures, and Senate precedents that govern presidential impeachment trials, there is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could conclude before President-elect Biden is sworn in next week, Mr. McConnell said. In light of this reality, I believe it will best serve our nation if Congress and the executive branch spend the next seven days completely focused on facilitating a safe inauguration and an orderly transfer of power to the incoming Biden administration.

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Which Other Presidents Have Been Impeached

In 250 years of history only three US presidents have faced impeachment: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump but none of them were convicted via the Senate trial. Clearly we still await to know if President Trump will make more history by being the first on that front too

Let’s consider the two impeachments that came long before we ever considered Trump could reach the highest office in the land.

President Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson, a Union Democrat, was Vice President to President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and assumed office after Lincoln was assassinated. He opposed the approach to Reconstruction, which he felt was too harsh, imposed upon the former Confederacy to bring them back in to the nation. He vetoed legislation that was part of that effort bringing him into conflict with the Congress.

Congress moved to impeach when he replaced Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was a Lincoln appointee, who along with General Grant worked to undermine the president’s Southern policy from within his own administration. Congress produced 11 articles of impeachment, which alleged that Johnson had violated the Tenure of Office Act, a law intended to limit presidential power to remove federal appointees from office. They claimed that he couldnt replace Stanton without the Senates approval.

President Bill Clinton

Trump Impeachment Trial Verdict: How Senators Voted

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Coons said he favors a Sept. 11-style commission to probe further into Trump’s actions leading up to and on the day of the Capitol attack.

“There’s still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear,” he said. “The 9/11 Commission is a way to make sure that we secure the Capitol going forward, and that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and how abjectly and violating of his constitutional oath President Trump really was.”

Trump’s role in the party

The Senate vote raises further questions about Trump’s role in the Republican Party going forward.

In a statement after the verdict, Trump said: “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an ally of the former president, told Fox News Sunday that he had spoken with Trump, and that he’s eager to help the GOP win the House and Senate back in 2022.

But Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who was one of seven Republicans who broke ranks with their party in voting to convict the former president, told ABC’s This Week that Trump’s “force wanes” in the GOP.

Cassidy is facing backlash in Louisiana over his vote, including the state GOP voting to unanimously censure him. But he says people want to hold their leaders accountable and that’s what his vote to convict was based on.

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