House impeachment
House impeachment

Impeachment Crises: Trump defiant as expected House impeachment vote puts Washington on edge

Posted by Sampson Gaddah December 18, 2019
Last Updated:December 18, 2019

With House impeachment vote imminent, Trump set to travel to Michigan to rally the faithful
President Trump on Wednesday will be far away from Capitol Hill — and the Washington establishment he has long criticized as an irredeemable “swamp” — as the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives prepares to impeach him in a likely party-line vote on charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.

Instead, the president will be on friendly turf in downtown Battle Creek, Mich., hosting a rally that may rank among his most defiant — a marked contrast from the approach of former President Bill Clinton, who mostly stayed under the radar during his own impeachment proceedings in 1998.

A crowd gathers on Federal Plaza for a protest against President Donald Trump on the eve of a scheduled vote by the US House of Representatives on the two articles of impeachment against the president Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
A crowd gathers on Federal Plaza for a protest against President Donald Trump on the eve of a scheduled vote by the US House of Representatives on the two articles of impeachment against the president Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

House Democrats will convene to adopt the rules for the impeachment debate shortly after 9 a.m. ET, followed by six hours of debate evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Some members will be afforded only one minute to speak, and no amendments to the impeachment resolutions will be permitted.

Trump supporters protest outside a town hall meeting where U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) is speaking on Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, in the Oakland Center at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. (Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP)
Trump supporters protest outside a town hall meeting where U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) is speaking on Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, in the Oakland Center at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. (Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP)

The final vote sequence will likely begin well into the evening hours, with one vote held on each article of impeachment, Fox News was told.

Also Read: Trump trashes Democrats and impeachment process: It’s a mark on our country

The stage was set late Tuesday night by the House Rules Committee, which approved the procedures for Wednesday’s impeachment proceedings in a 9-4 party-line vote after a marathon day of contentious hearings. Wednesday “promises to be a long day,” Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told reporters.

It will likely end with Trump becoming just the third U.S. president ever to be impeached — a history-making development that Trump has said reflects far worse on congressional Democrats than it does on him. In a blistering, no-holds-barred six-page letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Trump lambasted the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as an “open war on American Democracy,” writing that Pelosi has violated her oath of office and “cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!”