Washington: Hours before the House of Representatives is set to vote on articles of impeachment accusing Donald Trump of abusing his power and obstructing lawmakers' investigations, the US President has described himself as a victim of an "illegal, partisan attempted coup."
But the Democrats beg to differ. “If a president undermining our national security and using the federal government for his own selfish personal gain is not impeachable conduct, then, Madam Speaker, I don’t know what is,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Rules Committee.
The first charge is abuse of power. It accuses Trump of trying to pressure Ukraine to smear Joe Biden, his likely Democratic political rival in the 2020 General Elections. The second charge is obstructing Congress. Trump is further accused of failing to co-operate with the House impeachment investigation.
In the course of the day, there will be a series of procedural votes along with speech after speech after speech as lawmakers move toward a final vote on the two articles of impeachment against the president.
There will be two separate votes - one for each article. Both are expected to be approved. Incidentally, around that time, Trump is scheduled to speak at a campaign rally in Michigan.
An Associated Press count shows Democrats have sufficient votes for impeachment to prevail on the final vote. However, Republicans control the Senate where the move will eventually fail.
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the House Rule Committee, said the Democrats were being partisan, using “cherry picked” evidence to fit their narrative.
“If we’re really being honest,” he said, “Democrats have been searching to impeach President Trump since the day he was elected.” In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Trump said, "They just wanted to get at the President.
They had no intention of having a proper investigation. They couldn't find any crimes, so they have a vague charge of abuse of power and abuse of Congress…"
He added, "This should never happen to another President again. Say a prayer!" "You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment," said Trump, who is the third American president to be impeached.
"By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution and you are declaring an open war on American democracy," he said.
Two US presidents have been impeached thus far - Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 - but in both cases the Senate did not vote to oust them from office.
Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 when it became clear he would be impeached and ousted by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
