With Trump impeachment vote imminent, president traveling to Battle Creek, Mich., 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.
There
will be unusually tight security near the Capitol building in
Washington on Wednesday, Fox News was told, and some of those measures
were visible Tuesday night. 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.
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.
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!"
"Everyone,
you included, knows what is really happening," Trump said. "Your chosen
candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide
(306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this
defeat. So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn
the will of the American people and nullify their votes. You view
democracy as your enemy!"
Conceding the House vote, Trump said he wanted to set his words down “for the purpose of history.”
"You
are the ones interfering in America's elections," Trump wrote. "You are
the ones subverting America's Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing
Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic
for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain." READ IT: TRUMP LETTER SAYS DEMOCRATS WANTED IMPEACHMENT FOR YEARS, CAN'T HANDLE 2016 ELECTION LOSS
A letter from President Trump to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is
seen Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019, in Washington. (Associated Press)
Trump specifically hammered Pelosi for daring "to
invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification
scheme," and "even worse," for "offending Americans of faith by
continually saying 'I pray for the President,' when you know this
statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense."
"It is a terrible thing you are doing," Trump added, "but you will have to live with it, not I!"
Concerning
the obstruction-of-Congress impeachment count, Trump attacked Democrats
for "trying to impeach the duly elected President of the United States
for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted
on a bipartisan basis by administrations of both political parties
throughout our nation's history."
And, regarding the abuse-of-power charge, Trump noted that it was former Vice President Joe Biden who had "bragged" on video about having Ukraine's
allegedly corrupt prosecutor fired by threatening to withhold $1
billion in critical U.S. aid. But, House Republicans have been barred by
Democrats from calling witnesses that would help them make the case
that Trump's concerns about Ukraine corruption were legitimate.
"More
due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch trials,"
Trump wrote, observing that even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
has repeatedly said at the United Nations that he felt no pressure from the White House to conduct political investigations in exchange for military aid.
"More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch trials." — President Trump, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
The
president argued that Democrats were trying to distract Americans from
the strong economy and historically low unemployment numbers, and
pointed out that Democrats have openly called for impeachment since the day he took office.
Michigan
Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Trump noted, announced that "We're going
to impeach the motherf---er" all the way back in January -- long before
Trump's mentioned Biden's possible corruption in a phone call with
Zelensky.
Democrats' persistent but unsubstantiated allegations
that the Trump campaign had conspired with Russians to influence the
2016 election, the president observed, ultimately "dissolved into dust,"
but not before the nation had to endure years of "turmoil and torment."
(Also on Tuesday, in a highly unusual public statement, the secretive
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court slammed the FBI for
its misleading warrant applications to surveil a former Trump aide
during the Russia probe, and demanded immediate corrective action.)
But
Pelosi, who warned earlier this year that impeachment would need to be
bipartisan, called Trump's letter "ridiculous." She reaffirmed that
Democrats would go ahead with impeachment, even though they lack any
Republican support in the House.
“Very sadly, the facts have made
clear that the President abused his power for his own personal,
political benefit and that he obstructed Congress,” Pelosi wrote to
colleagues. “In America, no one is above the law.”
One by one this
week, centrist Democratic lawmakers, including many first-term freshmen
who built the House majority and could risk their reelection in
districts where the president is popular, announced they would follow
Pelosi's lead and vote to impeach.
Polls have shown that Trump is now leading his top Democratic rivals, and that impeachment is actually helping Trump in key battleground states that might decide the 2020 election.
Nationally, a Fox News poll this week found that 50 percent of respondents want Trump impeached and removed from office, even as Trump's job approval ticked up.
Voters in swing districts have increasingly voiced their frustrations at heated town halls as their representatives have said they will support impeachment. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., who represents a district Trump won in 2016, pointedly ignored protesters as she backed impeachment at an event this week.
For
her part, Rep. Abby Finkenauer, D-Iowa, referred to the oath she took
in January as she was sworn into office as guiding her decision. She
announced support for both articles of impeachment to “honor my duty to
defend our Constitution and democracy from abuse of power at the highest
levels.”
One new Democratic congressman, Jared Golden of Maine,
said he would vote to impeach on abuse of power but not obstruction, in
an apparent effort to appease both sides on the issue.
And a
freshman Democrat, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, is indicating he will
switch parties to become a Republican after opposing impeachment.
Earlier this year, Michigan conservative Rep. Justin Amash left the GOP
when he favored impeachment. Amash is now an independent.
A crowd gathers on Federal Plaza for a protest against President
Trump on the eve of a scheduled vote by the U.S. House of
Representatives on the two articles of impeachment against the
president, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019, in Chicago. (Associated Press)
After Trump's likely impeachment by a majority vote in the House, attention will soon shift to the Senate, which,
under the Constitution, is required to hold a trial on the charges.
That trial is expected to begin in January, and a two-thirds vote would
be needed to convict Trump and remove him from office.
Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has embraced the partisan nature
of impeachment, dropping pretenses of fairness -- such as those adopted
by Democrats, which he has characterized as superficial and
transparently phony, even as they refused GOP witness requests, called
numerous hearsay witnesses, and introduced articles of impeachment that
do not track any criminal statute.
“I'm not an impartial juror,”
McConnell declared, saying that Democrats' procedures in the House were
exclusively one-sided. The Republican-majority chamber is all but sure
to acquit the president; McConnell has announced
that he intends to spend Wednesday confirming new federal judges to
lifetime appointments every two hours while Democrats are debating and
voting on impeachment.
“Impeachment
is a political decision,” McConnell said. "The House made a partisan
political decision to impeach. I would anticipate we will have a largely
partisan outcome in the Senate. I’m not impartial about this at all.''
McConnell struck back Tuesday at his Democratic counterpart's calls for an in-depth impeachment trial featuring multiple new witnesses, dismissing the push as a "fishing expedition" that would set a "nightmarish precedent."
"The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury, to hear a trial,
not to re-run the entire fact-finding investigation because angry
partisans rushed sloppily through it,” he said on the Senate floor.
"The
Senate is meant to act as judge and jury, to hear a trial, not to
re-run the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans
rushed sloppily through it.” — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., joined by Sen. Roy
Blunt, R-Mo., left, and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, dismisses the
impeachment process against President Trump, saying, "I'm not an
impartial juror. This is a political process," as he meets with
reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019.
(Associated Press)
In a Sunday letter, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer
had called for the chamber to subpoena new documents and call witnesses
who had been blocked by the White House during the impeachment inquiry
on the House side.
McConnell claimed that such investigative
steps, though, were part of the House role -- not a mission for the
Senate. He warned that entertaining Schumer’s proposal to do House
lawmakers’ “homework” could invite a string of future “dubious” and
“frivolous” impeachment inquiries.
He stressed the fact-finding
mission should have been completed during the impeachment inquiry led by
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff,
D-Calif. McConnell accused the House of doing a rush job, and said
Schumer is now looking "to make Chairman Schiff's sloppy work more
persuasive."
Even after voting to impeach Trump, the House still
would need to vote formally to send the impeachment articles to the
Senate. In 1998, the House approved the resolution to send the articles
to the Senate about 10 minutes after the House voted to impeach
then-President Bill Clinton. But, Democrats might delay sending the
articles to the GOP-held Senate this time around, in a bid to influence
the proceedings there.
Such
an unprecedented move, however, would likely only further inflame
Republicans and moderates who have already looked with skepticism on the
impeachment proceedings.
"The allegations against the President
are incredibly, incredibly serious," Virginia Democratic Rep. Abigail
Spanberger, who flipped a GOP seat in 2018, told constituents this week.
A constituent quickly retorted: "They're incredible bulls--t." Fox News' Chad Pergram, Adam Shaw, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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