Title
The 1st Impeachment of Donald John Trump with no DUE PROCESS, IN VIOLATION OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION from the House of Representatives
Date
December 16, 2019
State or Country
District of Columbia
County/City:
Washington DC
The Court the Case was filed in
Congress / Senate
Type of Case
Impeachment of Donald J. Trump The House adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted Trump of these charges on February 5, 2020
Case Number
House Committee on the Judiciary Pursuant to H. Res. 660 & H.Res.755 - Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors. Senate: H. Rept. 116-346 Latest Action: Senate - 02/05/2020 The Senate adjudges that Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is not guilty as charged in the second Article of Impeachment by Yea-Nay Vote. 47 - 53. Record Vote Number: 34. (All Actions)
Judges
Chief Justice John Rober's of the Sumpreme Court of the United States of America
Plaintiff
Congress / Senate
Nancy Pelosi
(Speaker of the House of Representatives)
Adam Schiff
(Chair of the House Intelligence Committee)
Jerry Nadler
(Chair of the House Judiciary Committee)
Defendant
President Donald J. Trump
Trump's impeachment came after a formal House inquiry alleged that he had solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election to help his re-election bid, and then obstructed the inquiry itself by telling his administration officials to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony. The inquiry reported that Trump withheld military aid[a] and an invitation to the White House to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in order to influence Ukraine to announce an investigation into Trump's political opponent Joe Biden and to promote a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. A phone call between Trump and Zelensky on July 25, 2019 was particularly important—whistleblower Alexander Vindman was a participant in the call, and later informed Congress[citation needed].
The inquiry stage of Trump's impeachment lasted from September to November 2019 in the wake of Vindman's August whistleblower complaint alleging Trump's abuse of power[citation needed]. In October, three congressional committees (Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs) deposed witnesses. In November, the House Intelligence Committee held a number of public hearings in which witnesses testified publicly; on December 3, the committee voted 13–9 along party lines to adopt a final report. A set of impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee began on December 4; on December 13, it voted 23–17 along party lines to recommend two articles of impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The committee released a lengthy report on the impeachment articles on December 16. Two days later, the full House approved both articles in a mostly party-line vote, with all Republicans opposing along with three Democrats. This made Trump the third U.S. president in history to be impeached, and marked the first fully partisan impeachment where a U.S. president was impeached without support for the impeachment from the President's own party.
The articles were submitted to the Senate on January 16, 2020, initiating the trial. The trial saw no witnesses or documents being subpoenaed, as Republican senators rejected attempts to introduce subpoenas. On February 5, Trump was acquitted on both counts by the Senate, as neither count received 67 votes to convict. On Article I, abuse of power, the vote was 48 for conviction, 52 for acquittal. On Article II, obstruction of Congress, the vote was 47 for conviction, 53 for acquittal. Republican Mitt Romney, the only senator to break party lines, became the first U.S. senator to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial, as he voted for conviction on abuse of power.[
Defendant Attorney
The team will be led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, a private attorney who represented Trump in the Russia investigation.
Ken Starr - a Fox news commentator whose special counsel investigations led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment, will join the team
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz also will help deliver opening arguments
Comments
In the House of Representatives, U. S.,
October 31, 2019.
Resolved, That the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committees on Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, the Judiciary, Oversight and Reform, and Ways and Means, are directed to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America.
SEC. 2. OPEN AND TRANSPARENT INVESTIGATIVE PROCEEDINGS BY THE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE.
For the purpose of continuing the investigation described in the first section of this resolution, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (referred to in this resolution as the “Permanent Select Committee”) is authorized to conduct proceedings pursuant to this resolution as follows:
(1) The chair of the Permanent Select Committee shall designate an open hearing or hearings pursuant to this section.
(2) Notwithstanding clause 2(j)(2) of rule XI of the Rules of the House of Representatives, upon recognition by the chair for such purpose under this paragraph during any hearing designated pursuant to paragraph (1), the chair and ranking minority member of the Permanent Select Committee shall be permitted to question witnesses for equal specified periods of longer than five minutes, as determined by the chair. The time available for each period of questioning under this paragraph shall be equal for the chair and the ranking minority member. The chair may confer recognition for multiple periods of such questioning, but each period of questioning shall not exceed 90 minutes in the aggregate. Only the chair and ranking minority member, or a Permanent Select Committee employee if yielded to by the chair or ranking minority member, may question witnesses during such periods of questioning. At the conclusion of questioning pursuant to this paragraph, the committee shall proceed with questioning under the five-minute rule pursuant to clause 2(j)(2)(A) of rule XI.
(3) To allow for full evaluation of minority witness requests, the ranking minority member may submit to the chair, in writing, any requests for witness testimony relevant to the investigation described in the first section of this resolution within 72 hours after notice is given for the first hearing designated pursuant to paragraph (1). Any such request shall be accompanied by a detailed written justification of the relevance of the testimony of each requested witness to the investigation described in the first section of this resolution.
(4) (A) The ranking minority member of the Permanent Select Committee is authorized, with the concurrence of the chair, to require, as deemed necessary to the investigation—
(i) by subpoena or otherwise—
(I) the attendance and testimony of any person (including at a taking of a deposition); and
(II) the production of books, records, correspondence, memoranda, papers, and documents; and
(ii) by interrogatory, the furnishing of information.
(B) In the case that the chair declines to concur in a proposed action of the ranking minority member pursuant to subparagraph (A), the ranking minority member shall have the right to refer to the committee for decision the question whether such authority shall be so exercised and the chair shall convene the committee promptly to render that decision, subject to the notice procedures for a committee meeting under clause 2(g)(3)(A) and (B) of rule XI.
(C) Subpoenas and interrogatories so authorized may be signed by the ranking minority member, and may be served by any person designated by the ranking minority member.
(5) The chair is authorized to make publicly available in electronic form the transcripts of depositions conducted by the Permanent Select Committee in furtherance of the investigation described in the first section of this resolution, with appropriate redactions for classified and other sensitive information.
(6) The Permanent Select Committee is directed to issue a report setting forth its findings and any recommendations and appending any information and materials the Permanent Select Committee may deem appropriate with respect to the investigation described in the first section of this resolution. The chair shall transmit such report and appendices, along with any supplemental, minority, additional, or dissenting views filed pursuant to clause 2(l) of rule XI, to the Committee on the Judiciary and make such report publicly available in electronic form, with appropriate redactions to protect classified and other sensitive information. The report required by this paragraph shall be prepared in consultation with the chairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
SEC. 3. TRANSMISSION OF ADDITIONAL MATERIALS.
The chair of the Permanent Select Committee or the chair of any other committee having custody of records or other materials relating to the inquiry referenced in the first section of this resolution is authorized, in consultation with the ranking minority member, to transfer such records or materials to the Committee on the Judiciary.
SEC. 4. IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY PROCEDURES IN THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY.
(a) The House authorizes the Committee on the Judiciary to conduct proceedings relating to the impeachment inquiry referenced in the first section of this resolution pursuant to the procedures submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the chair of the Committee on Rules, including such procedures as to allow for the participation of the President and his counsel.
(b) The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to promulgate additional procedures as it deems necessary for the fair and efficient conduct of committee hearings held pursuant to this resolution, provided that the additional procedures are not inconsistent with the procedures referenced in subsection (a), the Rules of the Committee, and the Rules of the House.
(c) (1) The ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized, with the concurrence of the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary, to require, as deemed necessary to the investigation—
(A) by subpoena or otherwise—
(i) the attendance and testimony of any person (including at a taking of a deposition); and
(ii) the production of books, records, correspondence, memoranda, papers, and documents; and
(B) by interrogatory, the furnishing of information.
(2) In the case that the chair declines to concur in a proposed action of the ranking minority member pursuant to paragraph (1), the ranking minority member shall have the right to refer to the committee for decision the question whether such authority shall be so exercised and the chair shall convene the committee promptly to render that decision, subject to the notice procedures for a committee meeting under clause 2(g)(3)(A) and (B) of rule XI.
(3) Subpoenas and interrogatories so authorized may be signed by the ranking minority member, and may be served by any person designated by the ranking minority member.
(d) The Committee on the Judiciary shall report to the House of Representatives such resolutions, articles of impeachment, or other recommendations as it deems proper.
Attest:
Judges Comments
The chief justice sought to do during the three-week impeachment trial. He briefly reprimanded House prosecutors and Trump's lawyers for their language. He refused to read Sen. Rand Paul's question naming a person who may have been the whistleblower regarding Trump's dealings with Ukraine. He kept a firm hand on the clock, as he does at the Supreme Court.
And most importantly, he made it clear during a debate over issuing subpoenas for witnesses and documents that he would not vote to break a tie if the Senate deadlocked 50-50. That would have helped Democrats, but aiding the president wasn't Roberts' goal. Rather, it was an issue that comes before the court regularly: preserving the separation of powers.
His performance won applause from the Senate at the trial's conclusion Wednesday. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell awarded him a "golden gavel" for presiding "with a clear head, steady hand and the forbearance that this rare occasion demands."
In return, Roberts thanked senators and staff members for helping him carry out his "ill-defined responsibilities." He invited senators to visit the court if they "might want to see an argument, or to escape one."