The First Impeachment of Donald Trump
Overview
On September 24th, 2019, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that the U.S. House of Representatives was formally opening an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. While many in the conservative newsmedia and alt-right chose to decry her decision as politically motivated, the fact is that Speaker Pelosi had been pushing back against the pro-impeachment voices within her own party for over two years. Even after the release of the Mueller Report, which contained 8-9 carefully documented examples of President Trump obstructing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Speaker Pelosi had resisted calls to impeach the President.
However, when news of the suppressed whistleblower complaint became public, it quickly became clear that President Trump may have attempted to use the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election. If the allegation was true, such an act would constitute an egregious abuse of power by the nation's chief executive - an act so egregious that Congress could no longer reasonably turn a blind eye to the President's misconduct.
On October 31th, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on H.Res.660, a bill directing several committees to continue their investigations into President Trump's alleged misconduct. Since then, thousands of pages of transcripts have been piling up as witness after witness has testified in the inquiry - some in closed-door testimony, and some in public hearings broadcast to the nation.
Finally, on December 18, 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. A few short weeks later, Speaker Pelosi passed the two articles of impeachment on to the U.S. Senate where the House Impeachment Managers would make their case for President Trump's impeachment.
On Thursday, January 16th, 2020, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath to the Senators, which read as follows:
"Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you god?"
Despite all 100 Senators swearing an oath before God to do impartial justice, and despite overwhelming evidence of President Trump's guilt, only one Republican Senator chose to put his oath before God ahead of any partisan motivations. That Senator was Mitt Romney. Senator Romney subsequently became the first U.S senator to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial.
While the U.S. Senate did not ultimately vote to remove President Trump from office, the fact is that members of both parties voted in favor of removing President Trump from office for Abuse of Power.
