The House on Wednesday is set to impeach President Trump along strictly partisan lines, setting up a January Senate trial that has already provoked a battle between Democrats and Republicans that will consume Congress in the new year.
In defiance of indifferent and sagging poll numbers for impeachment, House Democrats are poised to approve two articles of impeachment accusing Trump of abusing power and obstructing Congress.
The looming vote would make Trump the third president in history to be impeached by the House. He’ll join President Bill Clinton, who was impeached in 1998, and President Andrew Johnson, who was impeached in 1868. No president has been ejected from office, though in 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal when it became clear sufficient votes existed in the House to impeach him and in the Senate to convict and remove him.
House approval will send the impeachment articles to the Senate, which will hold a trial in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said.
Senate Democrats and Republicans are already battling over the trial. McConnell wants a quick vote to dismiss the charges against the president while Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, wants to subpoena key Trump administration officials who refused to testify in the House impeachment investigation.
Public support for impeachment has remained stagnant and declining in some cases after weeks of hearings and depositions involving former and current Trump administration officials who testified both in public and in closed-door sessions.
Almost all House Democratic lawmakers are nonetheless expected to vote in favor of the two impeachment articles on Wednesday. Only a handful of Democrats are expected to vote against impeachment, party lawmakers said.
Swing-state Democrats, who are among the most politically vulnerable in 2020, lined up one by one to announce their support for the impeachment articles this week. Democrats said they are voting to impeach Trump in districts that support the president because they believe it’s the right thing to do and not because of poll numbers.
“This is not something you can do based on polls and what a political consultant tells you to do, and I feel firmly about that,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, said Tuesday after meeting privately with fellow House Democrats.
Slotkin earlier this week faced angry constituents in her district who oppose impeachment. Slotkin said their protests won’t change her mind.
“It’s the biggest honor of my life to represent this district,” Slotkin said. “But I’m not going to compromise my integrity.”
Two Democrats announced plans to oppose the impeachment votes. One of them, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, announced he would leave the Democratic Party for the GOP over the weekend after his opposition to impeachment attracted a primary challenge he would be likely to lose.
A second Democrat likely to vote no, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, is running in a toss-up race to fend off a GOP takeover in his district, which backed Trump by 30 percentage points in 2016.
There were several House Democrats from swing districts who did not announce whether they would vote for impeachment as of late Tuesday.
The vote came after a daylong hearing in the House Rules Committee to establish the parameters for Wednesday’s debate in which lawmakers will debate the merits of the case to impeach Trump put forward by Democrats.
Democrats accuse President Trump of withholding security aid from Ukraine in order to coerce Ukrainian government officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and allegations that Democrats worked with Ukraine officials to undermine the 2016 Trump campaign.
Democrats believe the president undermined national security and is working to influence the 2020 election by damaging Biden, a top political opponent. Democrats continue to accuse Trump of colluding with the Russians ahead of the 2016 election, despite a two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller that produced no charges related to collusion.
“We see a crime in progress, and I’m worried about the next election,” House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said. “That’s why there is urgency here.”
Republicans argued Democrats broke House rules in conducting the impeachment proceedings, denying the GOP minority access to witnesses and testimony, and using the typically nonpartisan Intelligence Committee to conduct the investigation rather than the Judiciary Committee.
The GOP said none of the evidence produced by the Democrats showed Trump committed any crime and said Democrats simply want to undo the 2016 election because they oppose Trump’s agenda.
“The most severe constitutional remedy in existence has been weaponized as just another way to attack the president of the party that isn’t yours,” Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, who is the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said. “To attack this president, Democrats are willing to tear down every inch of this and every other institution necessary.”
Trump on Tuesday sent a scathing letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, condemning the House impeachment process and declaring his “strongest and most powerful protest” against it. He accused Pelosi of “declaring open war on American democracy.”
In most polls, nearly half of voters oppose the impeachment process.
Democrats are not backing down.
Rules Committee Democratic member Ed Perlmutter of Colorado said Democrats are defending the country from a president who is undermining the nation’s security and the freedom of its elections.
“For me, this goes to the heart of the Constitution,” Perlmutter said.
