Impeachment Today: Judiciary Committee Approves Articles, 23-17
Articles of Impeachment were approved by the House Judiciary Committee and will be sent to the full House next week for a historic floor vote. Trump will go down in history, should the floor vote go as expected on Wednesday, as the third impeached president (Nixon resigned before the House could vote to impeach him).
The first article accuses the President of abusing his presidential power by asking Ukraine to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden while holding military aid as leverage; the second, obstructing Congress by blocking the House’s efforts to probe his actions.
The vote was taken on Friday morning, following a late night adjournment called by Chair Jerry Nadler after a 14 hour day of Republicans doing their best to stall and wear public attention down.
They were shocked--mind you, shocked!--by the decision to postpone the vote, which they’d hoped would happen in the dead of night.
From the Associated Press:
The Republicans on the panel, blindsided by the move, were livid. When Nadler announced that the committee wouldn’t vote until Friday morning, gasps were heard at the dais, and Republicans immediately started yelling “unbelievable” and “they just want to be on TV.” Congress is set to be out of session on Friday, and many lawmakers had other plans, some outside Washington.
“This is the kangaroo court that we’re talking about” stormed Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the panel, who said he had not been consulted on the decision. “They do not care about rules, they have one thing, their hatred of Donald Trump. ”
Trump is only the fourth U.S. president to face impeachment proceedings and the first to be running for reelection at the same time. The outcome of the eventual House votes pose potentially serious political consequences for both parties ahead of the 2020 elections, with Americans deeply divided over whether the president indeed conducted impeachable acts and if it should be up to Congress, or the voters, to decide whether he should remain in office.
As the Judiciary Committee voted to impeach the President for pushing Ukraine to investigate his political opponent, Trump’s free/personal attorney Rudy Giuliani arrived at the White House after going to Ukraine to investigate that same opponent.
Republicans, as part of their throw shit and see what sticks strategy, claimed the process of getting to the vote on President Trump was “20 times faster” than it was on President Clinton.
From opening of impeachment inquiry to Articles of Impeachment for Clinton: 72 days.
Yesterday: Day 80 in same process.
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1205521774324137984?s=20
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https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1205311801212190727?s=20
To be clear, one of the jurors in this trial has agreed to let the accused’s lawyers dictate the strategy.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the process of a Senate trial, here’s historian Jeffrey Tulis:
To raise the Senate up to the demands of high politics, the Framers decided that the Senate would need to recompose itself into a new institution—an impeachment court.
This transformation was serious enough that senators would have to take a new oath of office.
According to Article I, section 3, clause 6 of the Constitution, senators, when sitting on a trial of impeachment, “shall be on Oath or Affirmation.” When they are elected to the Senate, all senators swear a general Oath to uphold the Constitution.
But the Oath taken in an impeachment trial is different. It is a juror’s oath and a judge’s oath—not a legislator’s oath. Rule XXV of the Senate Rules in Impeachment Trials provides the text: “I solemnly swear (or affirm) that in all things appertaining to the trial of ____, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.”
For an impeachment trial of a president, the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides. He can be overruled by a majority vote of the other judges/jurors—which is to say the senators. But it is vital to remember that the Constitution asks them to remember that they are not sitting as senators, but now as judges and jurors.
So much so that for this brief period the senators are all equal. For the course of the trial the roles of Majority and Minority Leader, President Pro Tem, Committee Chairs, Whips, and so forth no longer exist. For the duration of the trial the Senate is a literally new institution with new rules, new norms, and new responsibilities.
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