Panel approves impeachment articles and sends charges for a House vote

A fiercely divided House Judiciary Committee pushed President Donald Trump to the brink of impeachment Friday, voting along party lines to approve charges that he abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress.

After a fractious two-day debate steeped in the Constitution and shaped by the realities of a hyperpartisan era in American politics, the Democratic-controlled committee recommended that the House ratify two articles of impeachment against the 45th president. In back-to-back votes just after 10 a.m., they adopted each charge against Trump by a margin of 23-17 over howls of Republican protest.

The partisan result and the contentious debate that preceded it were harbingers of a historic proceeding and vote on the House floor, expected next week, to impeach Trump, whose nearly three-year tenure has exacerbated the nation’s political divisions. Trump, who insists he did nothing wrong, is now only the fourth American president in history to face impeachment by the House of Representatives for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and possible conviction and removal from office by the Senate.

The charges ratified Friday arise from a House Intelligence Committee investigation that concluded this fall that the president has manipulated his administration to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his political rival, and a theory that Democrats conspired with Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election. He did so, Democrats allege, using as leverage nearly $400 million in security assistance for Ukraine’s fight against Russia and a coveted White House meeting for its president.

Trump then sought to conceal the scheme from Congress, the committee charged, ordering unprecedented, across-the-board stonewalling of its investigation unlike any “in the history of the Republic.” It amounted to an effort by the president to undermine the separation of powers and limit his accountability, they said.

Shortly after the votes, Stephanie Grisham, the White house press secretary, issued a short statement saying the president was eagerly anticipating vindication in a Senate trial.

“This desperate charade of an impeachment inquiry in the House Judiciary Committee has reached its shameful end,” she 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.”

The vote took place in the Ways and Means Committee room the morning after a contentious 14-hour session in the Judiciary Committee that stretched past 11 p.m. Thursday as Democrats turned back a number of Republican efforts to gut or weaken the charges and members of both parties feuded over impeaching the president. Republicans argued not only that Trump’s conduct was not impeachable but that his actions were entirely justified and explained by more innocent intentions.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, abruptly paused the session late Thursday night before bringing the articles to a final vote, saying he wanted members to take the time to “search their consciences” before the historic roll-call. After Republicans had dragged out the debate for hours, Democrats said they did not want such a consequential vote to occur in the dark of night, when the American public was unlikely to be watching.

House Judiciary House Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and committee ranking member Doug Collins (R-Ga.) talk over each other during a markup on the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)

On Friday morning, 40 members of the panel solemnly took their places on the wood-carved dais and voted without any further debate. After a week of accusations and recrimination, the vote took fewer than 10 minutes.

“Today is a solemn and sad day,” Nadler said in a brief statement afterward. “For the third time in a little over a century and half, the House Judiciary Committee has voted articles of impeachment against the president, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The House will act expeditiously.”

Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were both impeached on largely partisan votes, but were later acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 after the Judiciary Committee had approved charges against him and just before the House could take a final vote to impeach him.

On Friday, the Judiciary Committee endorsed the charge that Trump abused the powers of his office by pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rivals, using official acts as leverage as he sought advantage for his 2020 reelection campaign.

Though Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have explicitly connected the Ukraine matter to Trump’s embrace of Russian election assistance during the 2016 campaign, accusing the president of a broad and dangerous pattern of conduct, they elected not to include additional charges outside of it.

Republicans, who have defended Trump’s conduct and accused Democrats’ evidence of falling woefully short, declared Friday that Democrats had “tried to railroad the president.”

“It’s so unnecessary,” said Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio. “It was kind of preordained, I’m afraid, when this president got elected, because there were a group of people and they convinced a majority here on the Democratic side that this president needed to go.”

Democratic leaders have indicated the full House will debate and vote on the articles next week, with final approval likely falling Wednesday, just before Congress recesses for Christmas and New Year’s. They were lining up two more consequential votes to help soften the political liability for moderate Democrats in swing districts, including approval of Trump’s new trade deal with Canada and Mexico, and a massive defence bill.

After the Judiciary Committee adjourned, the Rules Committee sent notice that it would meet Tuesday morning to make the final preparations for the House vote.

Impeachment votes by the House Judiciary Committee have brought past presidents to their knees. Nixon resigned days afterward. Clinton promptly apologised for his actions and offered to accept a censure resolution by the House in lieu of impeachment.

Trump has remained defiant, insisting he had done “NOTHING wrong” and lambasting Democrats Friday morning as “the Party of lies and deception!” Firing off a series of tweets hours before the vote, Trump praised Republicans for their defence of him and declared “Republicans are the Party of the American Dream!” He was expected to meet Friday at the White House with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, whose intense public pursuit of the investigations into Trump’s political rivals provided the kindling that helped fuel the impeachment inquiry.

“It always helps to have a much better case, in fact the Dems have no case at all, but the unity & sheer brilliance of these Republican warriors, all of them, was a beautiful sight to see. Dems had no answers and wanted out!” he wrote.

Over the last two weeks, the president declined to send his lawyers to participate in the hearings or offer a White House defence before the House, breaking with the approach of Nixon and Clinton. He did not want to lend the proceedings legitimacy and argued he would get a fairer trial in the Senate.

Republican leaders in the upper chamber indicated Thursday, in the run-up to the vote, that they wanted a speedy trial and would work hand-in-glove with Trump’s defence team — an announcement that quickly drew a rebuke from Democrats who pointed out that senators take an oath to “do impartial justice” in an impeachment trial.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, predicted there was “no chance” 67 senators — the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction — would vote to remove Trump in an election year.

©2019 The New York Times Company