Trump: Divided House endorses impeachment inquiry into US president
- White House has reacted over House endorsement of impeachment inquiry into Trump
- US House of Representatives on Thursday, October 31, endorsed the impeachment
- The White House, however, described the process as sham
An impeachment process by the members of US House of Representatives against President Donald Trump divided the lawmakers on Thursday, October 31.
New York Times reports that the House democrats rallied behind a measure setting out rules for the public phase of their impeachment inquiry into President Trump endorsing the process.
It was gathered that a bitterly divided House of Representatives voted to endorse the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry into Trump.
Legit.ng learnt that the vote was 232-196 to approve a resolution that set out rules for an impeachment process for which there are few precedents which promises to consume the country a little more than a year before the 2020 elections.
According to the report, it was only the third time in modern history that the House had taken a vote on an impeachment inquiry into a sitting president.
The report also showed that two democrats broke with their party to vote against the measure, while Republicans under immense pressure from Trump to shut down the impeachment inquiry altogether unanimously opposed it.
Minutes after the vote, the White House press secretary denounced the process as “a sham impeachment” and “a blatantly partisan attempt to destroy the president.”
The vote removed almost any doubt that democrats would bring a full-fledged impeachment case against Trump for his apparent efforts to pressure a foreign power into investigating his domestic political rivals.
The resolution appeared to be designed to challenge Republican criticisms that Democrats had spent the last few weeks shredding important precedents in their zeal to remove a president from office under the cover of secretive depositions.
It was gathered that the dramatic vote with the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, came after an impassioned 45-minute debate that was fraught with the weight of the moment.
Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, quoted Alexander Hamilton.
The lawmakers listened from their seats, stone-faced and somber, while members of the public watched from the crowded gallery above.
“This is not any cause for any glee or comfort. What is at stake in all of this is nothing less than our democracy," Pelosi said as she stood beside a large placard of an American flag
The newspaper also noted that the Republicans worked to hold their ranks together in opposition with Trump rallying support at the White House ahead of the roll call.
It was gathered that though many of the rules were nearly identical to those Republicans adopted in 1998 when they impeached President Bill Clinton, party leaders insisted that supporting the resolution amounted to legitimizing what they view as an indefensible three-year campaign to undo the results of the 2016 election.
“Democrats are trying to impeach the president because they are scared they cannot defeat him at the ballot box. Why do you not trust the people?” McCarthy said.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the next stage of an impeachment procedure against Trump would be determined through a vote at the House of Representatives on Thursday, October 31.
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Source: Legit.ng
