On this day in 2019, in news reported on front pages around the world the next day, the House of Representatives impeached Donald J Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over Trump’s conduct with Ukraine, making him the third president in history to be charged with committing high crimes and misdemeanors and face removal by the Senate.
A formal House inquiry found on December 18, 2019 that Trump had solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election to help his re-election bid, withholding military aid to Ukraine to induce the country to announce a criminal inquiry into his political opponent Joseph Biden, and that he had then obstructed the inquiry itself by telling his administration officials to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony.
On February 5, 2020, the Senate acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles, 52 not guilty to 48 guilty on the first count, 53 – 47 on the second.
Trump was impeached for a second time in 2021 on January 13, 2021. following the January 6 United States Capitol attack, making him the first U.S. president in history to be impeached twice. This time, the Senate voted 57 guilty to 43 guilty to convict Trump of inciting insurrection, falling 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution. Seven Republican senators joined all Democratic and independent senators in voting to convict Trump, the largest bipartisan vote for an impeachment conviction of a U.S. president or former U.S. president.
“Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” Mitch McConnell, the then Republican leader of the Senate said in a speech after the vote. “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.” But Senate Minority Leader McConnell was not one of the Republicans who voted to convict. He voted to acquit. This, he said, was because Trump was already out of office. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”
Had the impeachment trial led to a conviction, Trump would have been barred from running for political office again.
