The U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump for abuse of power in exerting pressure on Ukraine and obstruction of Congress. However, experts say this decision doesn't mean that Donald Trump will leave his presidency before the 2020 presidential election. The final decision lies in the hands of the U.S. Senate, where the majority is held by the Republican Party, led by Trump.
Thus, incumbent president of the United States may become the third in U.S. history to be impeached. The two previous cases had a similar scenario - Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both impeached by the House of Representatives, but were acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon, tainted by the Watergate scandal, announced his resignation to avoid being impeached.
Ironically, however, some experts believe that impeachment pressure on Trump increased his re-election chances - 'all the president's men' rallied together, as impressive as ever, postponing all internal proceedings, squabbles and intrigues.
Donald Trump is accused for abuse of position and obstruction of Congress. The essence of the first accusation: Donald Trump pressed President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky to investigate activities in Ukraine of former U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden's son. He wanted from Kiev compromising information on Biden Jr., because Biden Sr. is likely to be his rival in the next year’s presidential election. He even suspended U.S. military assistance to Ukraine in order to make the Ukrainian authorities more accepting. It is known that in the framework of this "project," Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was recently sent to Kiev. It’s hard to say what he managed to dig up, or what his bosses told him.
The essence of the second charge is that when Congress began investigating the first charge, Donald Trump prohibited White House officials from testifying before Congress. Even if they received official summons.
The majority in the House of Representatives charged the president on both counts.
Congressmen managed to expose Trump thanks to the wilfulness of a number of diplomats, including the U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine. All of them ignored the president’s ban to testify before Congress and answered their questions. From their responses, it emerged that U.S. President Trump had organized an unofficial channel of communication with the Ukrainian authorities, the main goal of which was to force the Ukrainian president to at least announce investigation into Biden Jr. At the same time, Trump’s actions were characterized as aggressive, reminiscent of blackmail - he blocked $300 million in new military aid to Kiev and resumed it only when the story starts to come out and was made public. There was a big scandal, followed by the vote of the House of Representatives.
Now Trump's impeachment will be considered by the Senate. And it seems that it will not happen this year. But results of the hearings appear known ahead of schedule. The Republican Party holds the Senate majority, and its prominent representatives have already stated that a positive decision is not in their interests, i.e. they will not declare the president guilty.
But why did the Democratic Party start all this trouble when the situation could be calculated even by politically unsophisticated people? According to some experts, the Democrats perfectly understood their chances against Trump, and started the election campaign, trying to provide the incumbent president with weak initial positions. But they could have miscalculated in another way - the Republicans rallied to the threat of the president's impeachment, and there will be no handicap for the Democratic candidate. But if they choose Biden Sr. against Trump as planned, it might happen that the Republicans will attack him ... with his son's activities in Ukraine. Perhaps they managed to dig some dirt which they decided to use only when it would be most effective and efficient.
