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Why Is Trump Being Impeached

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

President Trump speaks for the first time after being impeached

Watch the moment President Trump was impeached for a second time

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.

Trump: ‘Violence and vandalism have no place in our country’


Graham Wants The Senate Trial To Be ‘as Short As Possible’

Hearings before the House Intelligence Committee featured testimony from current and former administration officials who said that the president had been turned against Ukraine by his “hand grenade” of a lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and that they were never given a reason to freeze the aid to Ukraine. The money was released on Sept. 11 amid bipartisan pushback from Congress.

The president maintained that a summary of his July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy showed that their talk was “perfect.” Democrats said the summary showed him pressuring the head of a country reliant on U.S. aid to help him politically.

Trump is the third president to be impeached in the nation’s 243-year history.

The two previous impeachments were also led by House Republicans. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 in part for replacing a Cabinet member without the advice and consent of the Senate. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice for lying under oath about an extramarital affair.

Clinton apologized for his conduct before he was impeached, something that Trump, who was then in private business, said was a mistake. Trump told Chris Matthews in 1998 that Clinton should not have cooperated with the investigation and should never have said he was sorry.


Johnson and Clinton were acquitted in the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required for conviction and removal from office.

Withholding Of White House Visit

In a May 2019 letter congratulating Zelenskyy on his election, Trump raised the possibility of a White House visit. However, during the next few months as Giuliani and some State Department officials pressed Zelenskyy to investigate Burisma and the 2016 election, a White House visit became one of the inducements offered or withheld depending on Zelenskyy’s cooperation.

Bill Taylor, the United States’ senior diplomatic official in Ukraine, testified in a congressional hearing that he learned in mid-July 2019 that a potential White House meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy “was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections”.

In testimony before congressional committees, the National Security Council’s head of European Affairs, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, testified that Sondland had told Ukrainian officials in his presence that they would have to launch investigations into the Bidens in order to get a meeting with Trump. He said Sondland indicated that “everything”including the military aid and the White House visitwas on the table pending Zelenskyy’s public announcement of such an investigation.

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Hong Kong To Look At Lifetime Cigarette Ban In Bid To Reduce Youth Smoking

Former US President Donald Trumps second impeachment trial officially begins in February, but the process formally kicked off Monday when the House of Representatives delivered the articles of impeachment to the Senate. You might be wondering, what does this all mean? And why would Congress bother impeaching Trump, when hes not even the president anymore? Heres whats going on.

House managers walk the article of impeachment against President Donald Trump during a procession to the Senate Chamber in Washington, DC. It accuses him of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that left five people, including a police officer, dead. Photographer: Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Bloomberg

What Was Trump Charged With

Bookies slash odds on Donald Trump being impeached following latest ...

Impeachment charges are political, not criminal. The president was accused by the House of inciting the storming of the Capitol – the seat of the US Congress – with a speech on 6 January to supporters outside the White House.

He urged them to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard, but also to “fight like hell” against an election that he falsely told them had been stolen.

Following Mr Trump’s remarks, his supporters broke into the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to suspend certification of election results and take shelter. The building was placed on lockdown and five people died in the melee.


The article of impeachment stated that Mr Trump “repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the presidential election results were fraudulent and should not be accepted”.

It says he then repeated these claims and “wilfully made statements to the crowd that encouraged and foreseeably resulted in lawless action at the Capitol”, leading to the violence and loss of life.

“President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government, threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperilled a coequal branch of government.”

Last week, 139 Republicans voted against accepting the result of the 2020 election and Mr Trump’s defeat.

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Trump Impeachment: Here’s How The Process Works

Trump became the first president impeached twice.

Former President Donald Trump faces an unprecedented second impeachment trial this week. Adding to the historic nature of the proceeding is that he is no longer in office and the members of the Senate who will decide his fate are among the victims in the Capitol siege, which he is accused of instigating.

The House of Representatives voted 232-197 on Jan. 13 to impeach Trump for an unprecedented second time for his role in the of the Capitol, which occurred as a joint session of Congress was ratifying the election of President Biden.

The extraordinary step of a second impeachment, which charged Trump with incitement of insurrection, took place just days before Trump was set to leave office. Only two other presidents — Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton — have been impeached and none have been convicted.

Unlike Trumps first impeachment in 2019 , 10 members of the House GOP, including conference chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., voted for impeachment and denounced the presidents actions. Democratic House impeachment managers argued in a brief ahead of his trial, which starts in earnest Feb. 9, that Trump bore “unmistakable” responsibility for the siege and called it a “betrayal of historic proportions.”


“He summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the managers wrote.

Here’s how the impeachment process works:

Trump Reacts To Impeachment Vote At Rally

Minutes before the vote on Wednesday night, Trump took the stage at a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan.

“It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” he told the cheering crowd. “The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. And we have tremendous support in the Republican Party like we ave never had before. Nobody has ever had this kind of support.”

Download the NBC News app for full coverage of Trump’s impeachment


Hours before the vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., took to the House floor to say it was imperative to impeach a president for the first time in two decades because Trump is “an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections.”

“It is an established fact the president violated the Constitution,” Pelosi said, standing next to a sign with aa U.S. flag that quoted a line from the Pledge of Allegiance: “To the Republic, for which it stands …”

Emotions ran high inside the Capitol ahead of the vote, with Democrats and Republicans accusing one another of acting in bad faith during 10 hours of debate.

Speaking on the floor, Rep. Debbie Lesko, R.-Ariz., said, “I believe this is the most unfair, politically biased rigged process that I have seen in my entire life.”

“This is the most partisan impeachment in the history of the United States,” she added. “Not one Republican voted for it in the Judiciary Committee. … Not one Republican, I don’t think, is going to vote for it here today.”


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Place In The Russia Investigation Counter

In February 2020, United States attorney John Durham was appointed to lead an investigation into the origins of the Mueller inquiry. It was reported that the investigation was focusing on former CIA director and Trump critic John Brennan and whether he had mishandled evidence during the early stages of the inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.Mick Mulvaney linked Durham’s investigation to the Ukraine scandal, stating that Durham had sought help from Ukraine and interviewed Ukrainian citizens. The Durham inquiry has been described as an “inquiry into its own Russia investigation”. and “investigating the investigators” of the Russian interference.

Giuliani’s Activities In Ukraine

Tucker: Why is the president being impeached?

As the impeachment hearings and trial unfolded, Rudy Giuliani returned to Ukraine to conduct his own investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. This was widely criticized as a further attempt to undermine Biden’s election campaign, for promoting widely debunked conspiracy theories about the Bidens, for Giuliani being a likely target for misinformation spread by Russian intelligence services, and because Giuliani is himself under investigation by American authorities. Giuliani went on to claim that he had found evidence that Barack Obama and Joe Biden had previously contacted Ukrainian officials looking to open an investigation into Paul Manafort, the chair of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, who had lobbied to American lawmakers on behalf of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

In February 2020, Attorney General William Barr announced that the Justice Department would receive any information gathered by Giuliani. Barr had previously announced that all investigations into foreign donations and interference into the 2020 presidential elections would require his personal approval.

During the impeachment process, Trump denied having sent Giuliani to Ukraine, but in an interview that aired on February 13, 2020, he reversed his prior denials and openly admitted sending Giuliani to Ukraine, praising him as a “crime fighter” and “the best prosecutor.”

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Other Proposed Reasons For Impeachment

Some commentators have argued that Trump has abused the Presidential pardon power, specifically offering to pardon federal officials who commit crimes such as violating the rights of immigrants and any necessary to build the Trump border wall before the next presidential election. Trump also declared he had an “absolute right” to pardon himself. Controversial Trump pardons include those of Joe Arpaio, convicted of ignoring a court order to stop police misconduct with regard to immigration enforcement Dinesh D’Souza, convicted of campaign finance violations and three military servicemembers convicted of war crimes.Impeachment has notably been suggested as a remedy for abuse of pardon power by James Madison during the debate over ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and William Howard Taft in a 1925 Supreme Court decision.

House Votes To Impeach Trump

The Democratic-led House of Representatives charged President Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

By Nicholas Fandos and Michael D. Shear

WASHINGTON The House of Representatives on Wednesday impeached President Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, making him the third president in history to be charged with committing high crimes and misdemeanors and face removal by the Senate.

On a day of constitutional consequence and raging partisan tension, the votes on the two articles of impeachment fell largely along party lines, after a bitter debate that stretched into the evening and reflected the deep polarization gripping American politics in the Trump era.

Only two Democrats opposed the article on abuse of power, which accused Mr. Trump of corruptly using the levers of government to solicit election assistance from Ukraine in the form of investigations to discredit his Democratic political rivals. Republicans were united in opposition. It passed 230 to 197, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi gaveling the vote to a close from the House rostrum.

On the second charge, obstruction of Congress, a third Democrat joined Republicans in opposition. The vote was 229 to 198.

On Wednesday, Democrats characterized his impeachment as an urgent action to stop a corrupt president whose misdeeds had unfolded in plain view from damaging the United States any further.

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Donald Trump Becomes The First Us President To Be Impeached Twice

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a historic second time Wednesday, charged with incitement of insurrection over the deadly mob siege of the Capitol in a swift and stunning collapse of his final days in office.

With the Capitol secured by armed National Guard troops inside and out, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump. The proceedings moved at lightning speed, with lawmakers voting just one week after violent pro-Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol, egged on by the presidents calls for them to fight like hell against the election results.

Ten Republicans fled Trump, joining Democrats who said he needed to be held accountable and warned ominously of a clear and present danger if Congress should leave him unchecked before Democrat Joe Bidens inauguration Jan. 20.

Trump is the only U.S. president to be twice impeached.

The Capitol insurrection stunned and angered lawmakers, who were sent scrambling for safety as the mob descended, and it revealed the fragility of the nations history of peaceful transfers of power. The riot also forced a reckoning among some Republicans, who have stood by Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked Abraham Lincoln and the Bible, imploring lawmakers to uphold their oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Hes Not President Anymore So Whats The Point

US President Donald Trump impeached for abuse of power

Trump was president from 2016-2020 . US law says that a person can be president for two terms of four years each, and Trump has expressed interest in running for office again in 2024.

If the Senate votes to convict Trump, they could then disqualify him from holding federal elected office in the future legally preventing him from running for president ever again.

Whats true and whats not in Trumps farewell speech

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After The 2018 Midterm Elections

On March 11, 2019, Nancy Pelosi said, “I’m not for impeachment, Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it. No. I don’t think he is. I mean, ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity wise unfit. No, I don’t think he’s fit to be president of the United States.” She then scolded herself for “coming across too negatively”.

With the Democrats in control of the House, and with a direct impeachment inquiry deemed somewhat toxic, the work of investigations into Trump’s possible crimes were divided into several committees while waiting for some outside force, such as the Mueller probe or the Southern District to force the Democratic leadership’s hands.

New Clarity Over Trumps First Impeachment Raises Questions About His Political Future

Donald Trump is the only American president to be impeached twice. His second impeachment, over his role in inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, was easy for Americans to understand. The events, after all, were documented on live television, surveillance cameras, and social media.

The issue at hand, the validity of the 2020 American presidential election, was also easy to understand and a record number of Americans participated in it. The Capitol building is something that any American who watches the news sees regularly. The facts, in most mainstream corners, were widely accepted. The arguments against impeachment were around whether an outgoing president should be impeached and whether the attack was that big of a deal.

Trumps first impeachment, however, went over the heads of a lot of Americans. The months-long investigation into whether Trump tried to improperly pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son were largely seen through a partisan lens. Those who followed the impeachment trial mainly jumped into their respective camps. Democrats, who had talked about impeachment since Trump took office, appeared happy that they found charges that were so clean. Republicans, ignoring the broader implications for Ukraine, largely viewed the impeachment as just politics from Democrats who were especially hung up on their hatred of Trump.

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Article Of Impeachment Introduced

WikisourceArticle of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump

On January 11, 2021, U.S. Representatives David Cicilline, along with Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu, introduced an article of impeachment against Trump, charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection” in urging his supporters to march on the Capitol building. The article contended that Trump made several statements that “encouragedand foreseeably resulted inlawless action” that interfered with Congress’ constitutional duty to certify the election. It argued that by his actions, Trump “threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government”, doing so in a way that rendered him “a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution” if he were allowed to complete his term. By the time it was introduced, 218 of the 222 House Democrats had signed on as cosponsors, assuring its passage. Trump was impeached in a vote on January 13, 2021 ten Republicans, including House Republican Conference chairwoman Liz Cheney, joined all of the Democrats in supporting the article.

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