In a vote straight along party lines, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Friday morning.
Every Democrat on the committee voted for both articles of impeachment, while every GOP member voted against the measures. Both were approved by a vote of 23 to 17.
The articles now head to the House rules committee, which controls access to the House floor and sets the parameters of debate. Then, the full House will vote on the president’s impeachment, likely before the end of next week.
The judiciary committee had exhausted all remaining time on debate, so Friday morning’s brief meeting was for a straight up or down vote. The entire committee meeting took only about 15 minutes.
President Trump himself declared Friday’s House committee vote to impeach him ”an embarrassment to our country.”
Trump declared in the Oval Office that the Democrats had “made absolute fools of themselves” by moving ahead with impeachment. ”You’re trivializing impeachment, when you use it for absolutely nothing, other than trying for political gain,” he said. ”It’s a sad thing for the country but a good thing for me politically.”
"This desperate charade of an impeachment inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee has reached its shameful end," White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said. "The president looks forward to receiving in the Senate the fair treatment and due process which continues to be disgracefully denied to him by the House."
Committee chairman U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) abruptly postponed the historic vote Thursday night after a 14-hour session, leaving Republicans like U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) furious.
“This is the kangaroo court that we’re talking about” said Collins, who added he had not been consulted on the decision. “They do not care about rules. They have one thing, their hatred of Donald Trump.
“It's a focus group impeachment."
Republicans had prolonged debate until after 11 p.m., and the immediate thought on Capitol Hill was that Democrats did not want to be accused of voting on impeachment "in the middle of the night,"so they delayed action until Friday.
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“Stalinesque,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).
Trump praised his defenders on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
The two articles of impeachment announced by House Democrats this week charge the nation’s 45th president with high crimes and misdemeanors.
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The first article charges President Trump with abuse of power.
Democrats allege Trump “solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 U.S. president election to his advantage.”
The “election prospects of a political opponent” refer to former Vice President Joe Biden, currently the front-runner in the still-crowded field of Democratic White House hopefuls.
The president “also sought to pressure the government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official U.S. government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of investigations.”
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In the second article of impeachment, titled obstruction of Congress, Democrats charge Trump has defied House subpoenas as it has pursued its constitutional power of impeachment.
“As part of this impeachment inquiry, the committees undertaking this investigation served subpoenas seeking document and testimony deemed vital to the inquiry from various executive branch agencies and offices,” the articles read. “President Trump directed executive branch agencies, offices and officials not to comply with those subpoenas.
“These actions were consistent with President Trump’s previous efforts to undermine U.S. government investigations into foreign interference in United States elections.”
»MORE: Trump, Democrats urge haste in impeachment proceedings
Democrats hold a solid majority in the House. If the House votes along party lines to impeach Trump, the president would then face trial in the U.S. Senate in a presidential election year.
Trump’s actual removal from office is problematic, however, because the Senate is controlled by Republicans and the GOP is rallying to support the president.
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