First impeachment of Donald Trump
, serving as the 45th president of the United States, was impeached for the first time on December 18, 2019, however he was not removed from office. On that date, the House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment.
Trump's first impeachment took place after a formal House inquiry found that he had solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Russia to help his re-election bid, and had then obstructed the inquiry itself by telling his administration officials to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony. The inquiry reported that Trump withheld military aid and an invitation to the White House from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in order to influence Ukraine to announce an investigation into Trump's political opponent Joe Biden, and to promote a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine–not Russia–was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. The inquiry stage of Trump's impeachment lasted from September to November 2019 in the wake of an August whistleblower complaint alleging Trump's abuse of power. A set of impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee began on December 4, 2019; on December 13, the committee voted 23–17 to recommend articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Two days later, the full House approved both articles in a mostly party-line vote. Trump is the third U.S. president in history to be impeached and the first to be impeached without support for the impeachment from his own party.
The articles of impeachment were submitted to the Senate on January 16–31, 2020, initiating an impeachment trial. The trial saw no witnesses or documents being subpoenaed, as Republican senators rejected attempts to introduce subpoenas. On February 5, Trump was acquitted on both counts by the Senate, as neither count received 2/3 votes to convict.
Trump remained in office for the remainder of his first term. However, he was impeached for a second time in 2021 following the January 6 United States Capitol attack, making him the first U.S. president in history to be impeached twice. Trump was again acquitted by the Senate in February 2021 after he had left office.
Background
is the third U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives, after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Before Trump, Johnson was the only president to be impeached in his first term. The House Judiciary Committee also voted to adopt three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, but he resigned prior to the full House vote. The Senate voted to acquit both Johnson and Clinton in their trials.Congress's first efforts to impeach Trump were initiated by Democratic representatives Al Green and Brad Sherman in 2017. In December 2017, an impeachment resolution failed in the House with a 58–364 vote margin. Following the 2018 elections, the Democrats gained a majority in the House and launched multiple investigations into Trump's actions and finances. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi initially resisted calls for impeachment. In May 2019, however, she indicated that Trump's continued actions, which she characterized as obstruction of justice and refusal to honor congressional subpoenas, might make an impeachment inquiry necessary.
Investigations into various scandals in the Trump administration, which could lead to articles of impeachment, were initiated by various House congressional committees led by Pelosi in February 2019. A formal impeachment investigation began in July 2019, and several subpoenas were issued; while most were honored, several were not. The Trump administration asserted executive privilege, which led to several lawsuits, including In re: Don McGahn.
Trump–Ukraine scandal
The Trump–Ukraine scandal revolved around efforts by U.S. president Donald Trump to coerce Ukraine and other foreign countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary candidate Joe Biden, as well as information relating to the origins of previous political attacks against him, such as the claims investigated by Robert Mueller. Trump enlisted surrogates within and outside his official administration, including his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, to pressure Ukraine and other foreign governments to cooperate in investigating conspiracy theories concerning American politics. Trump blocked but later released payment of a congressionally mandated $400 million military aid package to allegedly obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. A number of contacts were established between the White House and the government of Ukraine, culminating in a phone call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019. Less than two hours later, on behalf of the president, senior executive budget official Michael Duffey discreetly instructed the Pentagon to continue withholding military aid to Ukraine.The scandal reached public attention in mid-September 2019 after a whistleblower complaint made in August 2019. The complaint raised concerns about Trump using presidential powers to solicit foreign electoral intervention in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The Trump White House has corroborated several allegations raised by the whistleblower. A non-verbatim transcript of the Trump–Zelenskyy phone call confirmed that Trump requested investigations into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as a discredited conspiracy theory involving a Democratic National Committee server, while repeatedly urging Zelenskyy to work with Giuliani and Barr on these matters. The White House also confirmed that the record of the call had been transferred to a highly classified system. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said one reason why Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine was Ukrainian "corruption related to the DNC server", referring to a debunked theory that Ukrainians framed Russia for hacking into the DNC computer system. After the impeachment inquiry began, Trump publicly urged Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens. Bill Taylor, the Trump administration's top diplomat to Ukraine, testified that he was told that U.S. military aid to Ukraine and a Trump–Zelenskyy White House meeting were conditioned on Zelenskyy publicly announcing investigations into the Bidens and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. United States ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified that he worked with Giuliani at Trump's "express direction" to arrange a quid pro quo with the Ukraine government.
Inquiry
On the evening of September 24, 2019, Pelosi announced that six committees of the House of Representatives would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Pelosi accused the President of betraying his oath of office, national security, and the integrity of the country's elections. The six committees charged with the task were those on Financial Services, the Judiciary, Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Oversight and Reform, and Ways and Means.In October 2019, three congressional committees deposed witnesses, including Ambassador Taylor, Laura Cooper, and former White House official Fiona Hill. Witnesses testified that they believed that President Trump wanted Zelenskyy to publicly announce investigations into the Bidens and Burisma and 2016 election interference. On October 8, in a letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone to House speaker Pelosi, the White House officially responded that it would not cooperate with the investigation due to concerns including that there had not yet been a vote of the full House and that interviews of witnesses were being conducted behind closed doors. On October 17, Mulvaney said in response to a reporter's allegation of quid pro quo, "We do that all the time with foreign policy. Get over it." He walked back his comments later that day, asserting there had been "absolutely no quid pro quo" and that Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine over concerns of the country's corruption.
On October 29, 2019, Massachusetts representative Jim McGovern introduced a resolution referred to the House Rules Committee, which set forth the "format of open hearings in the House Intelligence Committee, including staff-led questioning of witnesses, and the public release of deposition transcripts". This resolution, formally authorizing the impeachment inquiry, was approved by the House by a vote of 232 to 196 on October 31, 2019. In November 2019, the House Intelligence Committee held a number of public hearings in which witnesses testified publicly. On November 13, Taylor and Kent testified publicly. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testified before the committee on November 15, 2019. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council's head of European affairs, and Jennifer Williams, Vice President Mike Pence's chief European security adviser, testified together on the morning of November 19, 2019. Later that day, Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special representative for Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, the former national security presidential adviser on Europe and Russia, gave public testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Also subpoenaed were Foreign Service officers Catherine Croft, Jennifer Williams, Christopher Anderson, and Suriya Jayanti.
File:Open Hearing with Dr. Fiona Hill and David Holmes.jpg|thumb|Open hearing testimony of Fiona Hill and David Holmes on November 21, 2019
On November 20, 2019, Ambassador Sondland testified that he conducted his work with Giuliani at the "express direction of the president", and that he understood a potential White House invitation for Zelenskyy to be contingent on Ukraine announcing investigations into the 2016 elections and Burisma. Later that day, Cooper and David Hale, the under secretary of state for political affairs, testified jointly before the committee. On November 21, 2019, Fiona Hill – who, until August 2019, was the top Russia expert on the National Security Council – criticized Republicans for promulgating the "fictional narrative" that Ukraine rather than Russia interfered in the 2016 election, asserting that the theory was planted by Russia and played into its hands. Testifying alongside Hill was David Holmes, the current head of political affairs in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.
On December 3, the House Intelligence Committee voted 13–9 along party lines to adopt a final report and also send it to the House Judiciary Committee. The report's preface states:
he impeachment inquiry has found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection. In furtherance of this scheme, President Trump conditioned official acts on a public announcement by the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of politically-motivated investigations, including one into President Trump's domestic political opponent. In pressuring President Zelenskyy to carry out his demand, President Trump withheld a White House meeting desperately sought by the Ukrainian President, and critical U.S. military assistance to fight Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.The Republicans of the House committees had released a countering report the previous day, saying in part that the evidence did not support the accusations: "The evidence presented does not prove any of these Democrat allegations, and none of the Democrats' witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor", said the draft report. This report also painted the push to impeachment as solely politically motivated – the report's executive summary stated, "The Democrats are trying to impeach a duly elected President based on the accusations and assumptions of unelected bureaucrats who disagreed with President Trump's policy initiatives and processes". During the inquiry, the Trump administration's public arguments were limited to assertions that the president had done nothing wrong and that the process was unfair.