WASHINGTON _ The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump Friday, setting up a vote by the full chamber next week to make Trump the third U.S. president to be impeached.
After 14 hours of withering debate Thursday, committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., surprised Republicans by abruptly concluding the hearing after 11 p.m. Eastern time and delaying a vote until the morning. Nadler urged members "to search their consciences before we cast our final vote."
As expected, the committee vote Friday morning fell along party lines.
The committee finalized two articles of impeachment _ for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress _ related to Trump's attempt to have Ukraine investigate his political enemies, a scheme Democrats described as a threat to democracy as the United States braces for another bitter election.
"We cannot tolerate a president subverting the fairness and integrity of our elections," Nadler said.
No Republicans voted for the articles, and they accused Democrats of seeking payback against a president they weren't able to beat at the ballot box _ and fear will win reelection next year.
After weeks of investigations, public hearings and nightly sniping on cable news, Thursday's hearing featured the most direct confrontation yet between members of Congress over whether Trump's actions merit impeachment and removal from office.
Republicans dragged out the proceedings by repeatedly floating amendments to eliminate or water down the impeachment articles, forcing lengthy debates that inevitably ended with Democrats swatting down the proposals. With no witnesses to question and little chance of substantive changes, the hearing _ spread over three days _ took on the tone of people arguing politics at a bar, albeit with more flowery language and strict procedural rules.
Democrats maintained that they were reluctant to impeach Trump, but argued that Congress serves as the last line of defense against a presidency that they say has veered out of control.
Republicans said it is Democrats, not the president, who overstepped their authority in their push for impeachment. They said the case against Trump was the product not of careful investigation but intense hatred of the president and his supporters.
Democrats' case against Trump focuses on his push for Ukraine to launch investigations that would help him politically. He pressed Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden, the former vice president who could be his Democratic opponent in next year's election. Biden's son Hunter had served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. Trump also wanted Ukraine to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory involving the Eastern European country and the hacking of Democratic Party emails in 2016, an operation that was carried out by Russia.
Trump "betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections," according to the articles of impeachment. He also "abused the powers of his high office" by directing administration officials to defy congressional subpoenas.
Republicans have repeatedly pointed out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said publicly he wasn't pressured by Trump. But Nadler noted that Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in security aid at the time he was pushing Zelenskiy to announce investigations.
Republicans continued to contend that Trump was correct to withhold aid because of concerns about corruption in Ukraine, even though the Pentagon had already certified to Congress that Ukraine had met the anti-corruption conditions needed to receive the money.
