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Rabat – US Congress has decided not to remove President Trump from office on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress that arose from his dealings with Ukraine.
The Republican-majority Senate voted yesterday in favor of acquitting Trump on the impeachment charges.
Impeachment allows the US Congress to put presidents on trial and attempt to remove them from office, thereby passing the executive role onto the sitting Vice President.
What are the charges?
The Democratic-led House of Representatives moved to impeach Trump on December 18, 2019.
The impeachment charges stem from a phone call on July 25, 2019, when Trump reportedly asked Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to “do us a favor.”
The Democrats alleged that Trump urged Kyiv to announce a corruption investigation into Joe Biden, a Democratic White House candidate in the upcoming election, and his son Hunter Biden.
Democrats accused Trump of abusing his power by withholding $391 million in security aid from Ukraine to compel Zelensky to dig up dirt on the Bidens, Trump’s political rivals.
They also levied an additional charge of obstruction of Congress during the impeachment trial after the White House blocked testimony and documents sought by the impeachment investigators.
The response
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi released a statement condemning the results of the bipartisan vote.
“Today, the President and Senate Republicans have normalized lawlessness and rejected the system of checks and balances of our Constitution,” Pelosi wrote.
“President Trump was impeached with the support of a majority of the American people – a first in our nation’s history,” she continued. “But the Senate chose instead to ignore the facts, the will of the American people and their duty to the Constitution.”
“By suppressing the evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process, the Republican Senate made themselves willing accomplices to the President’s cover-up.”
Meanwhile, Trump has celebrated his acquittal on social media and is set to deliver a public statement at 12 pm Eastern time from the White House to discuss his “victory on the impeachment hoax.”
Trump is the third US president to have been impeached, but he will be the first to seek re-election.
Americans will cast their ballots in the 2020 presidential election on November 3.
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