Three years ago, the US Congress impeached Donald Trump for the first time, with the impeachment effort essentially being driven by the US Democratic Party which controlled the majority of the House of Representatives at the time.
The impeachment hearings, which started in September 2019, led to the House of Representatives voting on December 18 to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
A little over a year later, in January 2021, Congress moved to impeach Trump yet again on charges of the incitement of insurrection, voting on the impeachment mere days before the end of his presidential term.
In both instances, Trump got acquitted on all charges as those seeking his impeachment failed to muster enough votes in the Senate.
So what was the story with those impeachment attempts?
Donald Trump’s First Impeachment
The tale of the first successful attempt by US lawmakers to impeach Trump can be traced back to August 2019 when US National Security Council member Alexander Vindman blew the whistle on a phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Vindman, who later testified during the impeachment hearings, claimed that Trump essentially attempted to pressure Zelensky into investigating the Biden family’s potentially shady affairs in Ukraine, allegedly using Kiev’s dependence on Washington’s assistance as leverage.
Regarding this development as Trump’s attempt to find dirt on Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s opponents in Congress initiated an impeachment inquiry, which led to Trump being charged with abuse of power, as well as with the obstruction of Congress due to his alleged attempts to stonewall the inquiry.
12 January 2021, 16:05 GMT
On December 18, 2019, Trump was formally impeached by the US House on both charges, with the vast majority of House Democrats (who held the majority at the lower chamber of the Congress at the time) voting “yes”.
The following impeachment trial in the US Senate, however, saw Donald Trump acquitted of both charges on February 5, 2020. US Republican Senator Mitt Romney also made history that day by becoming the first member of the US Senate to vote against a president from his own party during an impeachment trial.
Throughout the whole ordeal, Trump dismissed the allegations against him and described the impeachment inquiry as a “witch hunt.”
Donald Trump’s Second Impeachment
The second impeachment trial Trump had to endure was prompted by the tragic events of January 6, 2021, when a large group of his supporters descended upon the US Capitol, resulting in what later became known as the US Capitol riot.
The riot occurred on the day the US Congress was slated to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election – the election whose results Trump repeatedly and vocally questioned, citing the possibility of fraud.
As the participants of the US Capitol riot arrived there after attending a rally in another part of Washington D.C. where Trump himself made an appearance, and in light of his alleged attempts to overturn the election results, the US House of Representatives formally impeached him on January 13 on the grounds of “incitement of insurrection”.
In the end, Trump once again got acquitted by the US Senate: though most of the senators did vote guilty, the resulting amount of votes in favor of impeaching the 45th POTUS was still less than the required two-thirds majority.
The senate vote become historic, in a sense, as Trump became the first US president to stand impeachment after actually leaving office.