Trump impeachment vote: Congress tightens pressure on president amid Republican attacks

The House of Representatives has voted to formalise the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, paving the way for public hearings from officials after weeks of closed door proceedings that have yielded damning testimony for the president.

During a floor speech before the historic vote, House speaker Nancy Pelosi cast the issue facing congress in dire terms, saying the president’s assertion that the Constitution provides him the leeway to do whatever he wants as an existential threat to the republic.

“This is a solemn occasion. Nobody, I doubt anybody in this place or anybody you know comes to congress ... To impeach the president of the United States, unless his actions are jeopardising our oath of office,” Ms Pelosi said, standing next to a print of the US flag.

As the vote was being held, one of the president’s top Russia experts happened to be testifying behind closed doors to one of the committees leading the impeachment inquiry. Tim Morrison, a National Security Council official, reportedly echoed claims by William Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, that Mr Trump appeared to seek a quid pro quo in asking the government in Kiev to announce an investigation into Joe Biden, a frontrunner to face the president in next year’s election. But, he also told investigators that he did not consider the effort illegal or improper, just bad foreign policy.

The passage of the House resolution comes following weeks of complaints from Republicans, who have suggested that the secretive nature of the initial hearings were unfair to Mr Trump. They argued that Mr Trump has been denied due process by the procedural roadmap taken by Democrats, and suggested that past impeachment inquiries – notably into Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican Richard Nixon – afforded greater opportunities for the president to defend themself.

The measure was approved with a 232-196 vote. No Republicans broke rank to vote in favour of the measure, while two Democrats joined that Republican stonewall.

Democrats have argued that the impeachment inquiry, with or without a vote, is well within their constitutional powers, and have said that the initial hearings are just the beginning of what is to come. On Thursday, Ms Pelosi said that the work of House investigators had prepared them to formally open the impeachment inquiry, even as she swatted away the suggestion that Republican pressure had pushed her to do so.

“We’ve had to gather so much information to take us to this next step,” Ms Pelosi said of the resolution, which lays out the process for the introduction of articles of impeachment, open hearings and the procedures by which the president and his lawyers can respond to evidence.

Later, she continued: “Every member should support allowing the American people to hear the facts for themselves. That is really what this vote is about. It is about the truth. And what is at stake? What is at stake in all this is nothing less than our democracy.”

As the House voted, Mr Trump lashed out with a familiar message on Twitter: “The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!”

The White House responded quickly after the impeachment vote as well, with a letter that suggested they do not believe the formalised rules make the proceedings fair, as Democrats claim.

“The president has done nothing wrong, and the Democrats know it. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats’ unhinged obsession with this illegitimate impeachment proceeding does not hurt President Trump; it hurts the American people,” the statement says.

It continued: “With today’s vote, speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have done nothing more than enshrine unacceptable violations of due process into House rules. Speaker Pelosi, chairman [Adam] Schiff and the Democrats conducted secret, behind-closed-door meetings, blocked the administration from participating, and have now voted to authorise a second round of hearings that still fails to provide any due process whatsoever to the administration. The Democrats want to render a verdict without giving the administration a chance to mount a defence. That is unfair, unconstitutional, and fundamentally un-American.”

Previously, the White House was not able to access the closed door hearings, except through briefings from Republicans on the committees holding the hearings.

The House launched an impeachment inquiry into the president’s apparent pressuring of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in September, after a whistleblower came forward expressing concern that Mr Trump had inappropriately used his powers as president to push for an investigation into a potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden.

In response, the White House released a rough transcript of the July phone call between the two leaders, which appeared to show Mr Trump suggesting that US military aide to Ukraine was contingent upon such an investigation. The White House has claimed that there was no explicit quid pro quo made during that call.

But, the closed-door hearings have provided a steady drip of damaging information, which has suggested that Mr Trump did in fact seek a personal political favour using American financial resources. And, testimony from top American diplomats has suggested that regular diplomatic channels had been sidelined in a concerted effort led by Mr Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to force Mr Zelensky to open up an inquiry.

Included in that effort was an apparent conspiracy to get longtime diplomat and Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch fired, and a seemingly explicit conversations between Mr Taylor and others that Mr Trump was demanding Ukraine publicly announce an investigation if it wanted to receive military aide.