Donald Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives, making him just the third president in American history to receive such a rebuke.
The House, voting largely upon party lines, charged him on Wednesday night after hours of debate with abusing the power of his office in attempting to extort a political favour from Ukraine and obstructing the subsequent congressional investigation into his conduct. Just as votes were cast, Mr Trump began a rally of his in Michigan, where he mocked the proceedings against him, and the Democrats behind the effort.
Reacting to the news on Thursday morning, President Trump’s former adviser Anthony Scaramucci described him as “a lawless criminal” whose removal from office would “be like the Night King being killed in Game of Thrones”, calling on the Senate GOP to ensure he faces a fair trial when Congress reconvenes in the new year.
The historic vote split along party lines Wednesday night, much the way it has divided the nation, over a charge that the 45th president abused the power of his office by enlisting a foreign government to investigate a political rival ahead of the 2020 election.
The House then approved a second charge, that he obstructed Congress in its investigation.
The articles of impeachment, the political equivalent of an indictment, now go to the Senate for trial. If Mr Trump is acquitted by the Republican-led chamber, as expected, he still would have to run for re-election carrying the enduring stain of impeachment on his purposely disruptive presidency.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw a bit of uncertainty into the process Wednesday night by declining to say when, or even whether, she would send the charges to the Senate.
Mr Trump tweeted Thursday that the Senate should just go ahead and the Democrats “would lose by default,” but the trial cannot begin until the articles are delivered.
“The president is impeached,” MS Pelosi declared after the vote. She called it “great day for the Constitution of the United States, a sad one for America that the president’s reckless activities necessitated us having to introduce articles of impeachment".
The votes for impeachment were 230-197-1 on the first charge, 229-198-1 on the second.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Please allow a moment for our live blog to load.
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
Donald Trump impeached by House of Representatives
Donald Trump has been impeached by the House of Representatives in a humiliating rebuke after he was found guilty of abusing the power of his office in attempting to extort a political favour from Ukraine and obstructing the subsequent congressional investigation into his conduct.
Amid dramatic scenes on Capitol Hill - and after eight hours of heated denate - the historic vote split along party lines, much the way it has divided the nation. Having approved the abuse of power charge by a vote of 230 for to 197 against, the House then approved the second article of the impeachment resolution - that the 45th president obstructed Congress - by 229 votes to 198.
The articles of impeachment, the political equivalent of an indictment, now go to the Senate for trial, most likely in January.
Trump is expected to be acquitted by the Republican-led chamber, but would still then have to run for re-election carrying the enduring mark of impeachment on his purposely disruptive presidency.
Democrats led Wednesday night's voting, framed in what many said was their duty to protect the Constitution and uphold the nation's system of checks and balances. Republicans stood by their party's leader, who has frequently tested the bounds of civic norms. Trump called the whole affair a "witch hunt," a "hoax" and a "sham," and sometimes all three.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi, once reluctant to lead Democrats into a partisan impeachment, now risks her majority and speakership to hold the president accountable.
What Pelosi called a sad and solemn moment for the country, coming just 11 months after Democrats swept control of the House, actually unfolded in a caustic day-long session that showcased the nation's divide.
"Today we are here to defend democracy for the people," Pelosi said as she opened debate.
The split was not just along party lines, but the cultural, regional and racial differences that underscore the partisanship in Congress. People gathered at the Capitol steps, and in protests across the nation, to follow the impeachment vote.
The impeachment resolution stated: "President Trump used the powers of the Presidency in a manner that compromised the national security of the United States and undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process."
The resolution said the president "betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections," and that he obstructed Congress' oversight like "no president" in US history.
"President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office," it said.
Andrew Feinberg and Andrew Buncombe have this full report on the day that saw Trump join Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton in the history books.
Red-faced president lashes out at political enemies in feverish Michigan rally, calls impeachment 'political suicide march'
With Trump's infamy assured, the president himself raged into the abyss at one of his trademark rallies in Battle Creek, Michigan, timed to coincide with the vote in a desperate bid to reclaim the news agenda.
He labelled his impeachment "a political suicide march" for the Democratic Party as he delivered a rambling address in which he laid into his political enemies with reckless abandon.
"Crazy Nancy Pelosi's House Democrats have branded themselves with an eternal mark of shame," Trump told the crowd in battleground Michigan, where he took the stage just minutes before becoming only the third president in US history to be impeached. "It's a disgrace."
It was a dramatic and discordant split-screen moment, with Trump emerging from a mock fireplace like Santa Claus at the Christmas-themed rally as the impeachment debate in Washington played out. It was also Trump's longest rally ever, according to the tracking site Factbase, clocking in at two hours and one minute.
Throughout the rally, Trump unleashed his anger at the Democrats, slammed their effort as "illegal" and accused the party of demonstrating "deep hatred and disdain" for voters.
"After three years of sinister witch hunts, hoaxes, scams, tonight the House Democrats are trying to nullify the ballots of tens of millions of patriotic Americans," he said, claiming it was the Democrats who were "interfering in America's elections" and "subverting American democracy".
Mid-rally, an aide held up a sign notifying Trump of the impeachment vote count and the president announced to the crowd that "every single Republican voted for us. Whoa. Wow, wow... And three Democrats voted for us."
During the rally, Trump went after several legislators by name, including Democrat Debbie Dingell of Michigan, whose husband, former representative John Dingell, died earlier this year. Trump said Debbie Dingell had thanked him for "A-plus treatment" after her husband's death, telling Trump that if her husband were looking down he would be thrilled.
"I said, 'That's OK. Don't worry about it,"' Trump told the crowd. "Maybe he's looking up. I don't know." Some in the crowd gasped. Dingell responded by tweet, saying his "hurtful words just made my healing much harder."
Trump spent much of his marathon speech zigzagging between impeachment and unrelated topics, punctuating his remarks with more profanity than usual. He offered an extended riff on US pilots being more attractive than Top Gun star Tom Cruise, went after Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's difficult-to-pronounce last name and revelled - yet again - in his 2016 victory.
And after a day of harsh tweets, Trump at times projected a less-concerned attitude toward what he called "impeachment lite."
"It doesn't really feel like we're being impeached," he said shortly after taking the Christmas tree-adorned stage. Later, he added: "I don't know about you, but I'm having a good time. It's crazy." At another point, he declared: "I'm not worried. I'm not worried."
Trump also worked to highlight the Republicans who have stood with him, telling the crowd that the Republican Party has "never been so united" and predicting victory in 2020.
Aides had said Trump would wait until the House had finished voting before speaking at the rally, but he appearing onstage ahead of the votes and promised "the best speech you've ever heard."
As the impeachment debate wore on, Trump aides, including White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, fanned out across Capitol Hill to bolster the president's message that impeachment is helping Republicans and damaging Democrats. Vice president Mike Pence got to Michigan ahead of Trump for a daylong bus tour before the Battle Creek rally.
Serving as a warm-up act at the rally, Pence labeled the impeachment drive "a disgrace" and told the crowd that Democrats were "trying to impeach this president because they know they can't defeat this president."
Pelosi and the Democrats were "having their say tonight," he said, "but the Republican Senate is going to have their say in January."
Here's Andrew Buncombe on a night of red-faced bluster.
Anthony Scaramucci: 'Trump is a lawless criminal'
Reacting to the impeachment news on Thursday morning (much more on which shortly), President Trump’s former adviser Anthony Scaramucci told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Trump is “a lawless criminal” whose removal from office would “be like the Night King being killed in Game of Thrones”, calling on the Senate GOP to ensure he faces a fair trial when Congress reconvenes in the new year.
"It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t understand the morality of the position he’s in or he doesn’t understand the laws that he’s breaking and there’s a level of shamelessness about him that I find horrifying because he’s pulling along with him," the Mooch told Justin Webb.
The short-lived White House press secretary called on Republican senators Mitt Romney, Ben Sass and Lamar Alexander to ensure the president receives a fair trial in the Senate and urged Democrats to fight majority to leader Mitch McConnell to ensure key insider witnesses like John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani are heard from, hinting that they could turn on a president they would be reluctant to go to jail for.
On Trump's removal, Scaramucci said it would be "like the Fourth of July", predicting that even Trump's fabled base would fall away, saying "the fever is breaking".
"It’s a personality cult. All that false idol-ry of a personality cult will dissipate and so at the end of the day people will look around and say ‘What were we doing?’"
Seemingly alluding to the Debbie Dingell controversy from his rally speech, Scaramucci said of Trump's modus operandi: "This isn’t even early stage fascism any more this is like mid-stage to full-blown fascism. This guy goes after individual citizens."
"When you have a full-blown demagogue it usually ends in the tears of nihilism and destructiveness," he concluded. "Whether it’s David Koresh telling people to kill themselves and end their lives or Jim Jones telling people to dink Kool-Aid, full-blown demagogues that operate the way Donald Trump operates, they don’t go down easily. It always ends in tears with some level of mania and craziness but I don’t see the US being in that level of danger.
"He has destroyed the hard and soft power of the United States. He has wrecked a lot of the reputation of the United States and it has to be rebuilt and it has to be healed."
Here's Tim Wyatt's report.
Nancy Pelosi could delay sending articles of impeachment to Senate
Minutes after the House impeached Trump last night, House speaker Nancy Pelosi threw uncertainty into the process by refusing to say, repeatedly, when or whether she would send two articles to the Senate for a trial.
Her comments came as a surprise in a news conference late on Wednesday that was intended to express Democrats' somber closing message after voting to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. She started by praising her fellow Democrats for having "moral courage" and said it was "a great day for the Constitution of the United States of America."
But then she declined to say when she would send the articles to the Republican-led Senate. Until the articles are submitted, the Senate cannot hold the trial that is nearly certain to acquit the president.
Pelosi said House Democrats could not name impeachment managers - House prosecutors who make the case for Trump's conviction and removal from office - until they know more about how the Senate will conduct a trial.
"We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side," Pelosi said. "And I would hope that that will be soon... So far we haven't seen anything that looks fair to us. So hopefully it will be fair. And when we see what that is, we'll send our managers."
Senate majority leader McConnell rejected a proposal earlier this week from minority leader Chuck Schumer to call several witnesses. McConnell also said that he is coordinating with the White House and declared that "I am not an impartial juror." Pelosi said that McConnell "says it's OK for the foreman of the jury to be in cahoots with the lawyers of the accused. That doesn't sound right to us."
Schumer and Pelosi are reportedly set to meet on Thursday morning to strategise.
Asked again if she could guarantee that she would send the articles to the Senate, Pelosi said at the news conference: "That would have been our intention." But they will see what the Senate decides, she said.
"We are not having that discussion. We have done what we set out to do," Pelosi said.
An aide to McConnell said he did not have an immediate comment on Pelosi's remarks. But he tweeted that McConnell would speak about "House Democrats' precedent-breaking impeachment of the President of the United States" on Thursday morning.
Rhode Island congressman David Cicilline, a member of Pelosi's leadership team, said after her remarks that Democrats want impeachment proceedings that are "judicious and responsible and deliberative."
He said that while Senate will decide its own procedures, "the speaker's only point is before she sends it over she needs to understand what that is" because it will influence who the impeachment managers are.
Asked about never sending the articles over, Cicilline said, "I would not speculate that anyone's even contemplating that."
Republicans compare impeachment to the crucifixion, bombing of Pearl Harbour
All this and we've hardly had time time to hear what was actually said in the chamber yesterday.
Republicans Barry Loudermilk, Mike Kelly and Clay Higgins won the day when it came to sheer, down home, good old boy, fire-and-brimstone tent show crazy talk.
"I have descended into the belly of the beast, I have witnessed the terror within, and I rise committed to oppose the insidious forces which threaten our republic," said Louisiana native Higgins, standing alongside a Republican red map of the country.
Ranking Judiciary Committee GOP member Doug Collins - jabbering like Boomhauer from King of the Hill - also laid on his best Southern televangelist schtick.
Ohio's Jim Jordan - laughed at online for finally wearing a jacket with his tie - died as he lived: ranting about Adam Schiff.
What a nut house.
Among the Democrats, House Financial Services Committee chairwoman Maxine Waters lit a fire under the president in fine style, quoting Maya Angelou.
Here's Clark Mindock on AOC mocking Loudermilk.
Tulsi Gabbard votes 'present' on impeaching Trump
Hawaii congresswoman and 2020 contender Tulsi Gabbard also caused a stir by voting "present" on impeaching Trump, making her the only member of the chamber not to answer "yes" or "no" on the articles.
“I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing,” she later explained.
“I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting president must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country."
The reaction was fairly indignant on the Democratic side, with the more conspiracy-minded quick to label the choice further evidence of Hillary Clinton's contention that Gabbard is a Russian asset sent to split the vote to Trump's advantage in 2020.
Here's Zoe Tidman's report.
Vladimir Putin backs Trump over impeachment
Speaking of Russia, president Vladimir Putin has said this morning that Trump's impeachment was based on "far-fetched" charges and expressed his confidence the Senate will reject the motion.
Speaking at his annual news conference in Moscow, the Russian leader dismissed assertions that his US counterpart could be removed from office. "The party that lost the election is continuing the fight by other means," Putin said.
Here's Vincent Wood on a developing story.
Trump posts ominous meme in response to impeachment vote
Since Trump's rally last night, this alarming meme was his last word on the subject before going to bed angry.
He had plenty to say for himself on Twitter yesterday, however.
Here's Clark Mindock on his attempts to intervene and bolster Republican support.
Trump rants about immigration as he plays to his base in Michigan
Here's a little more on the president's rally in Battle Creek last night.
Trump was seeking to sure up his base by sticking to pet subjects like immigration, says Vincent Wood.
President provokes fresh outrage by suggesting Michigan congresswoman's late husband is in hell
Matt Drake has more on Trump's appalling attack on local congreswoman Debbie Dingell.
Desperate provocation tactics from a charlatan destined for the dustbin of history.
White House says Senate can’t subpoena senior advisers as impeachment trial looms
So what next for the impeachment process?
More White House stonewalling, predicts Andrew Feinberg.
Trump defender Mark Meadows will not seek re-election in 2020
This is an interesting turn of events.
North Carolina congressman Mark Meadows - one of the foremost Trump apologists out there alongside the likes of Collins, Jordan, Steve Scalise and Matt Gaetz - has announced he will not seek re-election in 2020, apparently so crestfallen at his hero's impeachment he can't go on in his current guise.
He's apparently considering working for Trump "in a still undecided role" though. Hmmm.
“For everything there is a season. After prayerful consideration and discussion with family, today I’m announcing that my time serving Western North Carolina in Congress will come to a close at the end of this term,” Meadows said in a statement. “This was a decision I struggled with greatly.”
“My work with President Trump and his administration is only beginning,” Meadows added. “This president has accomplished incredible results for the country in just three years, and I’m fully committed to staying in the fight with him and his team to build on those successes and deliver on his promises for the years to come. I’ve always said Congress is a temporary job, but the fight to return Washington, DC to its rightful owner, We The People, has only just begun.”
Republicans for Rule of Law urge GOP to take Senate trial seriously
A Republican campaign group has released an advert urging GOP senators to take Donald Trump‘s impeachment trial seriously.
The impending Senate trial must include testimony from witnesses, the Republicans for the Rule of Law group says.
Its new advert is aimed squarely at Lindsey Graham, a Trump booster who has insisted he will resist any attempts to call witnesses.
Jon Sharman reports.
Trump claims Republican unity is 'what people are talking about'
Narrator's voice: "It isn't."
Ukraine appoints new US ambassador
Trump probably never wants to hear from Ukraine ever again but he might be interested to know his old friend Volodymyr Zelensky has announced his new US ambassador today, appointing former UN ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko to the post.
What timing!
The country's previous Washington envoy, Valeriy Chaly, was sacked this summer.
Volodymyr Yelchenko (Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty)
'I'm a forensic psychiatrist at Yale. I took a look at Trump's letter to Nancy Pelosi - and it left me very worried'
For Indy Voices, Bandy X Lee - an expert on violence - has picked apart the president's extraordinary, delusional six-page poison pen letter to the House speaker on Impeachment Eve and did not like what she found.
Trump haunted by unearthed CNN interview in which he praises 'impressive' Pelosi and demands Bush impeachment
An old interview Trump gave to Wolf Blitzer on CNN in 2008 has resurfaced - with immaculate timing - in which the president is heard praising his current Public Enemy No. 1 Nancy Pelosi as "very impressive" and calling for the impeachment of George W Bush.
His idiot son Don Jr is also being haunted by his own prior statements on impeachment this morning.
There really is always a tweet with these guys, isn't there?
Greg Evans has more on that vintage CNN exchange for Indy100.
President attempts to pressure Democrats into passing over impeachment articles to Senate
Trump's second tweet on the day after the impeachment vote includes a typo, and the false suggestion that the Senate can somehow force the House to send over the approved articles of impeachment.
The House and Senate are both taking off for the holidays, so it wouldn't do much good for Nancy Pelosi to send the documents across the Capitol. But, Trump clearly sees an opportunity to slam Democrats on the issue either way:
The House and Senate are both taking off for the holidays, so it wouldn't do much good for Nancy Pelosi to send the documents across the Capitol. But, Trump clearly sees an opportunity to slam Democrats on the issue either way:
He's since gone back to bemoaning "PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!" and retweeting Fox journalists Katie Pavlich and Mark Levin.
Donald Trump Jr shills Christmas wrapping paper as father impeached
Speaking of Don Jr, he isn't letting a little thing like the crushing humiliation of his old man on the world stage stand in the way of a solid business opportunity.
Trump-branded wrapping paper - for the perfect cover-up.
N.B. My colleague Jon Sharman points out the following smallprint disclaimer: "Due to overwhelming demand, the Trump Gift Wrapping Paper will be unable to ship for delivery by Christmas."
Doesn't that just say it all?
