Donald Trump will go down in American history as the first president twice indicted by the House of Representatives. The sentence fell on Wednesday, January 13 in the middle of the afternoon, only a week after the assault given by some of his supporters against the Capitol, on January 6, and a week before the end of his mandate, set by the Constitution on January 20 at noon. To add to the stigma, ten elected officials from his own party added their votes to those of the Democrats who are in the majority, including the number three of the Grand Old Party in the House, Liz Cheney.
No conservative had failed in the vote of his first indictment, in December 2019. It was triggered by the revelation of a phone call in which Donald Trump had asked his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to open of investigations against his future adversary Joe Biden, whose son had done business in Kiev, in particular in exchange for the release of crucial military aid.
Currently on recess, the Senate – whose agenda remains in the hands of Republican Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) until the next president, Democrat Joe Biden, takes office – does not intend to seize it before January 19. He will therefore not be able to pronounce on a possible guilt before the departure from power of Donald Trump.
232 votes to 197
On Wednesday, 232 representatives adopted the article accusing the outgoing president of ” incitement to insurgency While 197 elected officials, all Republicans, rejected it. This article called into question his remarks made on the lawn of the Ellipse, opposite the White House, during the meeting which had preceded an outburst of violence on the Capitol, at the origin of the death of five people. He then invited his supporters to march on Congress to delay or reverse the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
The impeachment article also refers to pressure by the president, in an unwittingly recorded phone call on January 2, on election officials in Georgia to ” find “ the voices that would have allowed him to outrun his opponent.
During this indictment, also historic because of its speed and the proximity of the end of the mandate of the person concerned, the Democrats camped on two main arguments, declined throughout a flood of explanations of vote often exposed in less than a minute. Many representatives defended a duty to set an example, deeming it imperative that Donald Trump answer for the consequences of his actions.
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