After a near three-months’ long investigation into President Trump’s request that the Ukrainian President investigate Joe Biden and his son’s activities within Ukraine, yesterday the Democrats’ inquiry finally culminated in a House vote, which officially got the US President impeached on two grounds.
First, the House voted that he abused the power of his office by withholding financial aid from Ukraine in order to procure a personal favor in relation to the Bidens (as Joe Biden is one of his likely adversaries in the 2020 elections). Secondly, the House also voted that Trump tried to obstruct the investigation by refusing to cooperate or allow White House staff to speak about the incident.
Donald Trump became only the third President in the United States’ entire history to be impeached, after Andrew Johnson (impeached in 1868) and Bill Clinton (impeached in 1998). He might have been the fourth, but Pres. Richard Nixon resigned before the House could impeach him regarding the Watergate scandal.
While the impeachment is certainly an example of public shaming and a way to harm the President’s reputation, it likely won’t lead to Trump’s removal from office. In January, he will be tried on the two charges before the Senate, but his Republicans dominate it, and a two-thirds majority is needed to remove an impeached president. It is expected that the Senate will pardon Donald Trump’s crimes.
Some analysts have speculated that the Democrats were not ever hoping to remove Trump from office, since there is less than a year left in his mandate anyway, but wanted to tarnish his public image further in order to make him lose the 2020 Presidential elections.
