Donald Trump is the third U.S. president ever to be impeached by the House of Representatives.
After months of proceedings, the House formally voted to impeach Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment. Impeachment is the most crucial power afforded to the House under Article I of the Consitution. The founders intended for the power to be reserved for only the gravest of threats to the republic. Impeachment is inherently rare as it is deployed only in extraordinary instances where it may be determined that the president has committed "high crimes and misdemeanors."
The House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment to be brought to the floor of the House for a vote. Both articles of impeachment were passed: Article I alleged that Donald Trump abused the power of the office of the presidency and Article II alleged that Donald Trump obstructed Congress.
Article I specifically relates to the quid pro quo proposition that President Trump presented to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine over a phone call on July 15. In a call summary released by the White House, the President asked Zelensky to "do us a favor though" by publicly announcing an investigation into Trump's political rival, Vice President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter and exploring claims of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election (a debunked conspiracy theory oft-repeated by Congressional Republicans and Rudy Giuliani). In exchange, Trump would release $400 million in military aid that he had decided to withhold from Ukraine and meet with President Zelensky in the Oval Office.
Article II, obstruction of Congress, pertains to the Trump administration's unwillingness to cooperate with the impeachment proceedings. Specifically, Article II accuses the President of having "directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives." The Trump administration knowingly ignored subpoenas for documents requested by the House and directed officials within the Executive Branch to defy subpoenas as well.
While Trump has asserted that this was an unfair trial, he had the ability to comply and prove his supposed innocence. Instead, he chose to obstruct the Congressional investigation and blatantly rebuke established democratic norms that are meant to protect the rule of law in this country.
No Republicans voted to impeach the president. Two Democrats joined Republicans in opposing impeachment. And one independent joined Democrats in supporting impeachment.
Republican representatives offered a variety of arguments against impeachment, with Rep. Barry Loudermilk going as far as to compare the plight of Donald Trump to the persecution of Jesus Christ. In the end, they decried the impeachment proceedings as unfair and partisan while offering no concrete evidence to back up their argument. The impeachment process was fair and to suggest otherwise is an attempt to undermine democratic norms and procedures in blind faith to party over country.
This should be concerning to every American but especially so in light of the United States' steadily declining democracy score. Democratic deconsolidation is a concerning trend in global politics and the promotion of the erosion of democratic norms by the man who is supposed to be the leader of the free world is a startling symptom of a global epidemic. Impeachment was more than appropriate to address and rebuke the repeated abuse of the office of the presidency. No president should be allowed to use the most powerful office in the world for their own personal gain.
Most importantly, no person, not even the president, is above the law.