Judiciary Committee votes to send impeachment to US House of Representatives
The House Judiciary Committee has approved two charges against Donald Trump, setting up a vote next week by the US House of Representatives to impeach Donald Trump.
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US politicians took the grave step Friday of approving two charges against Donald Trump, setting up a full House of Representatives vote to impeach the president over his alleged misconduct.
Democrats and Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee voted along strict party lines, 23 to 17, appearing sombre as they put Mr Trump on track to become only the third president to be impeached in US history.
After the milestone votes, Mr Trump’s press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, labelled the proceedings a “desperate charade” and 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.”
Mr Trump called the vote “disgraceful”.
The vote came as the United States and China announced a major thaw in their trade war Friday, including immediate cuts to punishing import tariffs, but a lack of detail in the partial deal left markets cautious.
“We have agreed to a very large Phase One Deal with China,” Mr Trump tweeted after officials in Beijing made a similar announcement.
After multiple false dawns in the tussle between the world’s number one and two economies, investors were at least relieved that a new round of tariffs due to kick in on Sunday had been shelved.
Those levies “will not be charged because of the fact that we made the deal,” Mr Trump said.
In a major concession, Washington will half the 15 per cent tariffs imposed on $US120 billion in Chinese goods, like clothing, that were imposed September 1 and had a bigger impact on American shoppers than previous rounds.
Mr Trump said existing tariffs of 25 per cent on $US250 billion of Chinese imports would stay in place pending further negotiations on a second phase deal.
But there was little detail on what the United States will get in return for reducing the leverage.
Mr Trump said phase two talks, seeking a much broader reset of the trade superpowers’ relations, could start “immediately.”
He said Beijing had already “agreed to many structural changes and massive purchases of Agricultural Product, Energy, and Manufactured Goods, plus much more.”
DEMOCRATS INTRODUCE TWO CHARGES
Democrats have formally accused US President Donald Trump of two counts of “high crimes and misdemeanours”, setting the stage for a Senate impeachment trial for only the third time in American history.
Mr Trump was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in two articles of impeachment laid early Tuesday, local time, (1am Wednesday AEDT).
Democrats accuse the President of using his position to pressure his Ukraine counterpart to investigate his political rivals, which they described as a “clear and present danger” to national security and to next year’s election.
The articles stopped short of the also impeachable “bribery”, a charge which Democrats had spent the past 70 days trying to buttress through several inquiries in the House of Representatives.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the announcement as a “solemn duty”.
Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler said Mr Trump was being accused because of his “efforts to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, efforts that compromised our national security and threatened the integrity of our elections”.
“Throughout this inquiry he has attempted to conceal the evidence from Congress and from the American people,” he said.
Mr Nadler said a president “holds the ultimate public trust”.
“When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country he endangers the constitution, he endangers our democracy and he endangers our national security,” Mr Nadler said.
He argued that the framers of the constitution offered impeachment as a “clear remedy for presidents who so violate their oath of office”.
“It is an impeachable offence for the President to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest,” Mr Nadler said.
“That is exactly what President Trump did when he solicited and pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 presidential election.”
He said the second count of obstruction of Congress was being laid because he claimed Mr Trump had refused to cooperate with the investigation, saying he was “a president who sees himself above the law”.
“We must be clear, no one not even the president, is above the law,” he said.
Mrs Pelosi earlier said the House vote would be one of conscience, and it is widely considered likely to proceed.
“On an issue like this, we don’t count the votes. People will just make their voices known on it,” Mrs Pelosi said on Monday night.
“I haven’t counted votes, nor will I.”
The White House has so far refused to take part in House proceedings, focussing their attention on the anticipated Senate trial.
To Impeach a President who has proven through results, including producing perhaps the strongest economy in our country’s history, to have one of the most successful presidencies ever, and most importantly, who has done NOTHING wrong, is sheer Political Madness! #2020Election
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2019
Nadler just said that I “pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 Election.†Ridiculous, and he knows that is not true. Both the President & Foreign Minister of Ukraine said, many times, that there “WAS NO PRESSURE.†Nadler and the Dems know this, but refuse to acknowledge!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2019
WITCH HUNT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2019
Shifty Schiff, a totally corrupt politician, made up a horrible and fraudulent statement, read it to Congress, and said those words came from me. He got caught, was very embarrassed, yet nothing happened to him for committing this fraud. He’ll eventually have to answer for this!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2019
At least 20 Republicans would need to cross the floor to find the President guilty, which is considered unlikely at this stage.
The announcement on Tuesday followed a contentious House debate on Monday where the partisan nature of the proceedings continued to play out.
Republican Doug Collins of Georgia said Democrats were racing to force impeachment through on a “clock and a calendar” ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
“They can’t get over the fact that Donald Trump is the president of the United States, and they don’t have a candidate that can beat him,” Mr Collins said.
Mr Trump is accused of pressuring his counterpart in Ukraine to investigate his political rival in return for hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid and a sought after White House meeting for the country’s newly installed leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and his supporters say it was appropriate for the President and his representatives to push Ukraine to investigate the son of leading 2020 Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Mr Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president and led the US relationship with Ukraine at the same time his son Hunter held a highly paid position on the board of an energy company there, which was found to be corrupt.
Originally published as Judiciary Committee votes to send impeachment to US House of Representatives
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