On September 24, 2019, an impeachment inquiry was initiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after a whistleblower accused Donald Trump of abusing his presidential powers. The Republicans responded to the claim with incredulity as can be seen by not only flaky defence but also by a series of increasingly tasteless tweets by Trump.
The impeachment proceedings are centred around whether the US president improperly sought help and intervention from Ukraine to improve his chances for re-election in 2020. Trump was accused of pressuring Ukraine to dig up damaging information against his opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Biden, former Vice President, is running for the 2020 presidential elections, representing the Democrats. But, what does he have to do with Ukraine in the first place?
In 2014, during President Obama’s presidency, Biden had implored him to push Javelin anti-tank missiles to Kiev upon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was rejected by the president. However, Biden continued to attempt to reform Ukraine’s energy industry. His son, Hunter, joined the board of a Ukrainian gas company that was later subjected to multiple corruption investigations. This subplot earned its place in the limelight as President Trump and his lawyer attempted to investigate uncorroborated charges against the Bidens.
An unnamed whistleblower, an intelligence officer, had lodged a complaint against the President, expressing his concern about Trump’s call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25th. The President was accused of withholding USD $400 million in military aid from Ukraine (already confirmed by Congress) This, according to the Democrats, was an abuse of presidential power that threatened national security as Ukraine was using the aid in the ongoing conflict with Russia. Trump also obstructed Congress by not cooperating with the congressional inquiry.
The president denies using the US military as a bargaining chip insisting his call with the Ukrainian leader to be ‘perfect’. He went so far as to call the impeachment inquiry by the Democrats a ‘witch hunt’.
The impeachment process is broadly split into two stages. First, articles of impeachment are brought to the House of Representatives, where a vote is passed along party lines. For this particular impeachment, the two articles of impeachment were abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The final vote is set to take place on 5th February 2020 - a Wednesday afternoon. The Senate is expected to acquit him from the charges provided that the Senate is Republican-led and is voting against even allowing additional witnesses and documents in the trial.
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