The full House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Donald Trump.
What Democrats once hoped would be a bipartisan act — only the third time in U.S. history the House will vote to impeach — was a starkly partisan roll call Wednesday.
The debate on the House floor wrapped up after eight hours and voting started shortly after 6 p.m. MST and lasted an hour.
The president faces two articles of impeachment brought by Democrats. They say he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election and obstructed Congress by aggressively trying to block the House investigation from its oversight duties as part of the nation’s system of checks and balances.
Approval of the articles now sets up a 2020 trial in the Senate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to soon name a handful of members to argue the Democrats’ case in the Senate trial. It’s still unclear who these impeachment managers will be, but they are likely to be members of the Judiciary and intelligence committees that took the lead on the case.
Pelosi has kept quiet on potential names. But the managers are expected to be from safe Democratic districts, diverse in race and gender and from all parts of the country. It is also likely that the number of impeachment managers will be fewer than 13, the number of GOP managers in President Bill Clinton’s 1998 trial.
