WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Friday, officially charging him with “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” in a historic step toward removing him from office.
With the party-line 23-17 vote, Trump became just the fourth president in U.S. history to face impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The committee took just 10 minutes to approve both articles, following a 14-hour session Thursday, teeing up a history-making floor vote next week and a Senate trial in January to determine Trump’s fate. “For the third time in a little over a century and a half, the House Judiciary Committee has voted articles of impeachment against the president for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said in brief remarks after the vote. “The House will act expeditiously.”
The first impeachment article alleges Trump abused his power by withholding military aid and a critical White House meeting from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, while pressuring him to launch political investigations targeting Democrats. Trump’s blanket refusal to cooperate with the Democratic investigation is the basis of the “obstruction of Congress” impeachment article.
Trump, expressing confidence that the Senate would acquit him, dismissed the vote Friday as “an embarrassment to this country.”
Nadler and other Democrats said it was a “solemn and sad” moment as they cast votes aimed ousting a president from office. But the sense of sobriety quickly gave way to flashes of anger as Democrats lashed out against the man who holds immense sway over how the Senate trial might proceed: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In a late Thursday interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, McConnell, R-Ky., all but guaranteed a Trump acquittal, saying there was “zero chance” the president would be removed from office. He promised “total coordination” with the White House and Trump’s defense team.
“The case is so darn weak coming over from the House,” he said. “We all know how it’s going to end.”
Those remarks – and McConnell’s pledge to “take my cues from the president’s lawyers” – infuriated House Democrats. After deciding to back articles of impeachment that would force a trial in the Senate, many said the upper chamber appeared to be rigged in the president’s favor.
“I was very disappointed in Senator McConnell’s remarks and I really think he should recuse himself from this impeachment inquiry,” said Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla. “He’s working hand in hand with the White House, the president’s attorney. And yet we are supposed to expect him to manage a fair and impartial impeachment inquiry? I think he should recuse himself.”
It was a sign that the partisan brinkmanship that locked the House Judiciary Committee in hours of heated debate over impeachment this week could spill over into the Senate, shaping the contours of the trial expected to take place in January.
The full House vote on impeachment, expected to take place on Wednesday, is likely to fall largely along partisan lines. It will be the culmination of the House’s three-month investigation, which has featured dramatic testimony from civil servants, an anonymous whistleblower from the U.S. intelligence community and hundreds of tweets by a president determined to disrupt the process.
As the Senate prepares to receive the impeachment articles, McConnell’s comments could put additional pressure on moderate Republican senators who want to be seen taking the process seriously ahead of tough re-election battles next year. While Trump has previously said he wants to use the Senate trial to mount a robust defense by interrogating multiple Democratic witnesses, it is not clear there is majority support in the Senate for such a scorched-earth strategy.
On Friday, Trump appeared to back down slightly from his demand that the Senate call witnesses, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the anonymous U.S. intelligence official whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry. He has also said he wants the Senate to interrogate former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Trump’s push to have Zelensiky investigate both men is at the heart of the “abuse of power” charge he now faces.
Trump accused Democrats of “trivializing impeachment,” predicting that they would ultimately regret the decision.
“I tell you what: Someday there’ll be a Democrat president and there’ll be a Republican House, and I suspect they’re going to remember it,” he said Friday, accusing Democrats of using impeachment “to try and get a political gain.”
When asked if he preferred a long or short trial in the Senate, Trump demurred.
“I’ll do whatever I want,” he said. “We did nothing wrong. So I’ll do long, or short.”
McConnell and other senators have tried to convince Trump that a truncated trial without witnesses would allow him to be acquitted quickly. But the president is also being influenced by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who has sought to go on offense in recent weeks. Giuliani, who recently traveled to Ukraine in an attempt to do his own investigation of the Bidens, met Friday with Trump. He arrived at the White House just before the House Judiciary vote to impeach the president.
Giuliani also took to Twitter to deride the impeachment inquiry and repeat his claim that he has evidence of misconduct by the Bidens.
“The American people have already made up their mind on this #ImpeachmentScam,” he tweeted. “This is a SMOKESCREEN for the Obama-Biden administration’s corruption. It will soon be proven.”
Joe and Hunter Biden — who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president — have denied any wrongdoing.
Ahead of next week’s vote, Democrats have begun to amass increasing support within their caucus for impeaching Trump. While some lawmakers representing districts carried by Trump are expected to vote against one or both articles, several moderate Democrats said this week they would back impeachment.
Reps. Susie Lee of Nevada and Tom O’Halleran of Arizona, both moderate Democrats representing districts Trump carried in 2016, said Friday they would vote in favor of both articles of impeachment.
