Is a double impeachment like a double rainbow? I feel like it is.
Yes, that’s me.
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The House of Representatives voted tonight to impeach President Trump, a truly historic moment in what has been an unconventional and polarizing presidency. During an epic debate today, Democrats and Republicans clashed on the House floor, delivering hours of speeches before casting largely party-line votes on two articles of impeachment.
To get some perspective on this remarkable day, we turned to Nicholas Fandos, our indefatigable congressional reporter, to explain the significance of what we just watched and give us a preview of what’s coming next.
Hi, Nick. So, talk to us about what you just witnessed. How big a moment is this?
Trump is now only the third American president ever to be impeached by the House of Representatives. In terms of the three-year struggle between this unconventional president and the Democrats, who view him as nothing short of a threat to democracy, this will certainly go down as one of the most consequential inflection points.
Yes, this is a moment historians will be writing about for a long time. But the process is far from over. Where do we go from here?
Somewhat anticlimactically, the House and Senate will now go home for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. But we expect, early in the new year, the Senate to reconvene and start sitting basically as a jury in a trial of the president. We don’t know how long that trial will last. We don’t know how expansive it will be. The outcome seems most likely to be the president’s acquittal and continuation in office — not a conviction and removal from office. But that is the next unpredictable phase in this whole saga.
Democrats had a lot of control in the House, but they’re the minority in the Senate. Do they have any control in the next phase?
Democrats will appoint a group of a half-dozen lawmakers to serve as “impeachment managers,” or prosecutors in the Senate trial. And they can recommend that the Senate call witnesses. They’ll be able to orally present their case to the Senate and potentially question any witnesses who do come up. But, by and large, they will now be at the mercy of the (Republican) senators who control the process.
How closely is Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, coordinating with the president and his office?
McConnell said last week that he would closely coordinate the parameters of the trial. Now, whether he decides to take it upon himself to be an advocate for the president’s position in the trial, that remains to be seen. But as of right now, it’s not entirely clear where he will fall, except he’s made clear he thinks the Democratic case is a weak one and that it will lead to acquittal.
Which senators, beyond the leadership, should we keep a close eye on?
There are a couple of groups who are most worth watching. There are the centrist Republicans who tend to stick up for the institution. And there are the retiring Republicans who care a lot about their legacy. Both of those groups have reasons to want to show the American public that whatever outcome they reach, they had a fair trial. So watch those two groups, plus an overlapping third one: Republicans who are up for re-election in swing states next year.
If you take those three groups and you assume that Democrats more or less hold together, at least in terms of how the Senate ought to operate a trial and carry it out, there’s a potential for a kind of coalition that could overpower the majority leader and go a long way in setting the terms of what this process looks like and whether they call witnesses, whether they get additional evidence, how long it lasts, all of that.
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I get people urging this as a solemn, somber moment. We never should have gotten to this terrible point.
At the same time, you have to understand that seeing Trump finally held personally accountable on some level for his crimes resonates with many.
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Cross-posting 
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And THIS is Trump’s first post responding to his impeachment.
It says everything about him.
He is the one being impeached, and so he wants everybody else to be afraid to protect him.
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U.S. Envoy to Ukraine Was Asked to Step Aside Ahead of Pompeo Visit
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor was instructed by a top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to hand over responsibilities for his post just days before Mr. Pompeo plans to visit the Ukrainian capital, according to a person familiar with the situation.
That timing countered earlier suggestions that Mr. Taylor’s precise departure date was predetermined, and will allow Mr. Pompeo to avoid meeting or being photographed with an ambassador who has drawn President Trump’s irefor his testimony in the congressional impeachment inquiry, according to this person and to Ukrainian officials.
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will post another
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted as the House prepares to vote on two articles of impeachment against the president, shows a deadlock. Among American adults, 48% favor his impeachment and removal and 48% oppose it.
That represents a tiny shift in Trump’s favor since late October, when a 49%-46% plurality favored impeachment and removal.
Yet responses to other questions in the poll show larger numbers of Americans disturbed by the Trump’s behavior, which represents a warning sign for his 2020 reelection prospects.Just like in Congress, the American public splits along party lines on whether President Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office over the Ukraine scandal.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted as the House prepares to vote on two articles of impeachment against the president, shows a deadlock. Among American adults, 48% favor his impeachment and removal and 48% oppose it.
That represents a tiny shift in Trump’s favor since late October, when a 49%-46% plurality favored impeachment and removal. But support for his ouster has risen since early October, just after the news about his handling of Ukraine policy broke; then, a 49%-43% plurality opposed his impeachment and removal.
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Certainly matches his emotional age.
Republican group targets Graham in ad calling for fair Senate trial
Trump always punches down. Even for HIM this is low.
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Robert Reich: If Impeached by the House, Trump is Literally Unpardonable | Opinion
Not even overwhelming evidence that Trump sought to bribe a foreign power to dig up dirt on his leading political opponent in 2020—and did so with American taxpayer dollars, while compromising American foreign policy—will cause Trump to be removed from office.
That’s because there’s zero chance that 20 Republican senators—the number needed to convict Trump, if every Democratic senator votes to do so—have enough integrity to do what the Constitution requires them to do.
These Republican senators will put their jobs and their political party ahead of the Constitution and the country. They will tell themselves that 88 percent of Republican voters still support Trump, and that their duty is to them.
It does not matter that these voters inhabit a parallel political universe consisting of Trump tweets, Fox News, rightwing radio, and Trump-Russian social media, all propounding the absurd counter-narrative that Democrats, the "deep state,"coastal elites, and mainstream media are conspiring to remove the Chosen One from office.
So if there’s no chance of getting the 20 Republican votes needed to convict Trump and send him packing, is there any reason for the House to impeach him?
Yes. There are three reasons.
The first is the Constitution itself. Donald Trump has openly and brazenly abused his power—not only seeking electoral help from foreign nations but making money off his presidency in violation of the emoluments clause, spending funds never appropriated by Congress in violation of the separation of powers, obstructing justice, and violating his oath to faithfully execute the law.
A failure by Congress to respond to these abuses would effectively render the Constitution meaningless. Congress has no alternative but to respond.
The second reason is political. While the impeachment hearings don’t appear to have moved Republican voters, only 29 percent of Americans still identify as Republican.
The hearings do seem to have affected Democrats and independents, as well as many people who sat out the 2016 election. National polls by Morning Consult/Politico and SSRS/CNN show that 50 percent of respondents now support both impeaching Trump and removing him from office, an increase from Morning Consult/Politico’s mid-November poll.
Presumably anyone who now favors removing Trump from office will be inclined to vote against him next November. The House’s impeachment could therefore help swing the 2020 election against him.
The third reason for the House to impeach Trump even if the Senate won’t convict him concerns the pardoning power of the president.
Assume that Trump is impeached on grounds that include a raft of federal crimes – bribery, treason, obstruction of justice, election fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, making false statements to the federal government, serving as an agent of a foreign government without registering with the justice department, donating funds from foreign nationals, and so on.
Regardless of whether a sitting president can be indicted and convicted on such criminal charges, Trump will become liable to them at some point. But could he be pardoned, as Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon 45 years ago?
Article II, section 2 of the Constitution gives a president the power to pardon anyone who has been convicted of offenses against the United States, with one exception: "In Cases of Impeachment."
If Trump is impeached by the House, he can never be pardoned for these crimes. He cannot pardon himself (it’s dubious that a president has this self-pardoning power in any event), and he cannot be pardoned by a future president.
Even if a subsequent president wanted to pardon Trump in the interest of, say, domestic tranquility, she could not.
Gerald Ford wrote in his pardon of Nixon that if Nixon were indicted and subject to a criminal trial, “the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost.”
Had the House impeached Nixon, Ford’s hands would have been tied.
Trump isn’t going to be as lucky. The House will probably impeach him before Christmas.
After that, he will be quite literally unpardonable.
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There is a Trump tweet or quote for EVERYTHING.
Footage resurfaces of Trump saying Bush should be impeached for “lying”
(And also praising Nancy Pelosi)
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Pelosi threatens to delay Senate impeachment trial
Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to commit Wednesday to delivering articles of impeachment to the Senate, citing concerns about an unfair trial on removing President Donald Trump from office.
Senior Democratic aides said the House was “very unlikely” to take the steps necessary to send the articles to the Senate until at least early January, a delay of at least two weeks and perhaps longer.
“So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” Pelosi told reporters at a news conference just moments after the House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstructing congressional investigations. “That would’ve been our intention, but we’ll see what happens over there.”
Pelosi’s comments, which echo suggestions raised by other Democrats throughout the day, inject new uncertainty into the impeachment timetable and send the House and Senate lurching toward a potential institutional crisis.
Here’s the press conference from the article,
Speaker Pelosi News Conference
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), flanked by six House Democratic leaders, including House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) and House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), held a news conference following the impeachment vote against President Trump. During her beginning remarks, Speaker Pelosi said December 18th, a great day for the Constitution of the United States, a sad one for America."
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And she was just asked about it again this morning at her weekly press briefing.
House Speaker Weekly Briefing
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says she will wait to hear how the Senate trial will proceed before naming impeachment managers, adding that she hopes the process will be fair.
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RULES OF PROCEDURE AND PRACTICE IN THE SENATE WHEN SITTING ON IMPEACHMENT TRIALS
I. Whensoever the Senate shall receive notice from the House of Representatives that managers are appointed on their part to conduct an impeachment against any person and are directed to carry articles of impeachment to the Senate, the Secretary of the Senate shall immediately inform the House of Representatives that the Senate is ready to receive the managers for the purpose of exhibiting such articles of impeachment, agreeably to such notice.
II. When the managers of an impeachment shall be introduced at the bar of the Senate and shall signify that they are ready to exhibit articles of impeachment against any person, the Presiding Officer of the Senate shall direct the Sergeant at Arms to make proclamation, who shall, after making proclamation, repeat the following words, viz: ‘‘All persons are commanded to keep silence, on pain of impris- onment, while the House of Representatives is exhibiting to the Senate of the United States articles of impeachment against ——— ———’’; after which the articles shall be exhibited, and then the Presiding Officer of the Senate shall inform the managers that the Senate will take proper order on the subject of the impeachment, of which due notice shall be given to the House of Representatives.
It would appear that this is all supposed to happen simultaneously, the House appoints their case managers and the Senate gets ready to receive them, sending word to the Speaker that they are ready to proceed with the impeachment trial. The congressional holiday just seems to creates a nice natural break from the next phase, case managers haven’t been selected yet.
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This is helpful,
And this
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Handy guide
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