US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran appeared to be “standing down” after missile strikes against Iraqi bases that caused no US casualties, indicating there would be no immediate new military response. 

In a televised address to the nation from the White House, Trump emphasized that there were “no Americans harmed” in the salvo of missiles aimed at two bases.

While he promised to immediately impose “punishing” new economic sanctions against Iran, Trump welcomed signs that Iran “appears to be standing down” in the tit-for-tat confrontation, signalling that the United States did not plan a new military riposte.

Trump closed his remarks by addressing Iranians directly, saying that he was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it”.

However, the US president, facing both an impeachment trial in Congress and a tough re-election in November, touted his decision to order the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani last Friday – the operation that prompted Tehran’s missile strike.

Soleimani, a national hero in Iran, was “the world’s top terrorist” and “should have been terminated long ago”, Trump said.

Although Trump ended his remarks with the call for peace, he opened by stating bluntly that he would never allow Iran to procure a nuclear weapon.

He then urged European allies and other world powers to follow America’s lead in abandoning a teetering international agreement on managing the country’s nuclear ambitions, and negotiate a new one instead.

Revenge ‘another issue’

Iran’s overnight missile strikes targeted the sprawling Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and a base in Arbil, both housing American and other foreign troops deployed in a US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the missiles a “slap in the face” for the United States and indicated that more was to come.

“An important incident has happened. The question of revenge is another issue,” Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The office of Iraq’s premier said it had received advance warning from Iran that a missile attack on US forces was imminent.

“Iraq rejects any violation of its sovereignty and attacks on its territory,” the statement said, without specifically condemning the missile strikes.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh denounced the missile attack, warning against attempts to turn Iraq into a “battlefield for warring sides”.

‘Proportionate measures’

The brazenness of the strike was highly unusual for Iran, which has tended to disguise attacks on US interests or troops through its use of proxy Shiite forces.

“Ballistic missiles openly launched from Iran onto American targets is a new phase,” said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias.

But as the dust settled, it appeared that Iran’s strike – coming soon after the burial of Soleimani at a funeral in front of vast crowds – might have been more symbolic than anything.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps warned any US counter-attack would be met with an even “more crushing response” and threatened to strike Israel and America’s “allied governments”.

However, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to indicate that Iran was satisfied for now.

“Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defence,” Zarif said on Twitter.

Sadr calls for restraint

The strikes sparked worldwide condemnation, including from NATO, Germany, France and the UK.

France said its forces deployed in Iraq sustained no casualties while the UK was concerned about “reports” of victims as British troops are stationed there. The Norwegian military said coalition troops were warned of the attack in advance through intelligence channels.

The apparent de-escalation did not remove pressure from approximately 5,200 US troops stationed across Iraq, where Iran has close links to powerful armed Shiite militias.

And Iranian allies in the country said they still intend to take revenge for Friday’s US attack in which top Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was killed alongside Soleimani.

Paramilitary chief Qais al-Khazali – blacklisted as a “terrorist” by the US – said his side’s response to the United States ” will be no less than the size of the Iranian response.”

Influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the crisis Iraq was experiencing was “over” following de-escalation rhetoric from both Iran and the US, calling on militia groups not to carry out attacks.

“I call on the Iraqi factions to be deliberate, patient, and not to start military actions, and to shut down the extremist voices of some rogue elements until all political, parliamentary and international methods have been exhausted,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The killings of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and a top Iraqi paramilitary chief in a US strike on Baghdad Friday threaten to drag Iraq into the abyss of regional conflict, analysts warned.

The US strike on Baghdad international airport targeted a convoy carrying Soleimani and his top Baghdad-based adviser Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s powerful Hashed al-Shaabi force.

The raid has confirmed the worst fears of many Iraqis: that their homeland will become the main battlefield in a looming conflict between Iran and the United States.

“Iran’s strongest cards are in Iraq, and I think that Iraq will pay the price for this,” said Fanar Haddad of Singapore University’s Middle East Institute.

Tensions between the United States and Iran have been rising for months, as the Washington accused Tehran-backed factions of firing rockets on their troops across Iraq and on their embassy in Baghdad.

But they have soared over the past week.

On December 27, a rocket attack killed a US contractor working in northern Iraq, prompting retaliatory US strikes that killed 25 fighters from Kataeb Hezbollah, a hardline Hashed faction.

Angry Hashed supporters laid siege to the US embassy as Washington announced hundreds of new US troops were en route to the region.

– Path to war? –

But Washington delivered its most decisive blow yet early Friday when a volley of strikes hit near Baghdad international airport, leaving two cars torched on the access highway.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed Soleimani was killed in the strike while the Hashed announced Muhandis’s death.

With the two dead, the Quds Force — the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Guards Corps — has been left decapitated and the Hashed lost its de facto chief, too.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe revenge” for the raid and its top security council was meeting to discuss options.

Analysts said the outbreak of a wider conflict was looking increasingly likely.

“If Iran does need to respond and make a performance out of this, the fear is that there will be something more than just loading rockets at embassies,” said Haddad.

“It could set Iraq along the path of internal conflict and that’s something Iran can very easily instigate,” he said.

The nature of the strike is unpredecented because of the seniority of those targeted — making its repercussions hard to picture, said Ramzy Mardini, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace.

“The problem with judging what happens next is a problem of imagination. Nobody thought this was in the realm of possibility,” he told AFP.

“It’s likely that all actors on all sides will be playing things by ear in the short term, which is a recipe for miscalculation,” said Mardini.

– ‘Heads will roll’ –

Friday’s strike had shown that Iran could no longer use its allies in Iraq to carry out attacks against US interests “without risking an American conventional retaliation on Iran,” Mardini told AFP.

“Plausible deniability has gone out the window.”

The US had expressed increasing frustration with the escalating rocket attacks on its 5,200 troops in Iraq and on its embassy in Baghdad over the past two months.

US forces led the 2003 invasion against then-dictator Saddam Hussein and Washington has worked closely with Iraqi officials and commanders since then.

But its influence has waned compared with that of Iran, which carefully crafted personal ties with Iraqi politicians and armed factions, even during Saddam’s reign.

Soleimani was the prime example, sweeping into Baghdad regularly to hold meeting with top Iraqi officials during times of turmoil.

Ranj Alaaldin, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Doha, said that would leave Iran with a range of questions for its Iraqi partners.

“How did the US know of Soleimani’s arrival in Baghdad? Who leaked the intel?” Alaaldin tweeted.

“Watch the Iraqi political space. Heads will roll.”

Source: AFP

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has convened a key meeting of top ruling party officials, state media said Sunday, ahead of a year-end deadline for Washington to shift its stance on stalled nuclear talks.

The plenary session, which opened on Saturday, follows widespread speculation that Pyongyang is preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile — as a threatened “Christmas gift” for Washington.

Kim presided over the meeting which discussed a new “transparent, anti-imperialist independent stand”, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The ruling Workers’ Party of Korea will also “discuss important matters arising… in the building of the state and national defence”, KCNA added.

Talks on denuclearising the Korean peninsula have been largely deadlocked since the second summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump collapsed in Hanoi at the start of this year.

The opening of the plenary comes a week after Kim held a meeting of top defence officials and discussed boosting military capabilities, and ahead of the leader’s New Year speech on January 1, a key political set-piece in the isolated country.

Pyongyang has carried out a series of static tests at its Sohae rocket facility this month, after a number of weapons launches in recent weeks — some of them described as ballistic missiles by Japan and others.

North Korea is under heavy US and United Nations sanctions over its nuclear programme, but it has been frustrated at the lack of relief after it declared a moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests.

Russia and China — North Korea’s main ally — have proposed easing sanctions in a bid to de-escalate tensions.

‘Imminent’ threat 

The ongoing meeting could have Pyongyang announce “major policy shift” from its previous approach with the US, said Hong Min, a senior researcher at the South’s state-run Korea Institute for National Unification.

Earlier this month, North Korean media published pictures of Kim riding a white horse on a sacred mountain, imagery that experts said was heavy with symbolism and may indicate a policy announcement.

“We’ll find out what the surprise is and we’ll deal with it very successfully,” Trump said.

“Everybody’s got surprises for me, but let’s see what happens. I handle them as they come along.”

But Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton — a longtime hawk on North Korea — has sharply criticised the president’s handling of the issue, and claimed that Pyongyang poses an “imminent” threat.

The US president has invested a huge amount of political capital in his attempt to persuade Kim to end North Korea’s isolation and give up its nuclear weapons.

There has been little progress, however, after three face-to-face meetings and numerous letter exchanges.

(AFP)

The US Senate remains deadlocked over how to proceed with an impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, more than a week after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached the Republican president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, is waiting until she receives more clarity from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, about what an impeachment trial will look like.

McConnell, however, says he wants to start the Senate trial as soon as lawmakers return from the holiday recess in January.

Democrats are also outraged over McConnell’s pledge to coordinate the trial with the Trump administration and do everything he can to acquit the president.    

Impeachment begins in the House. If the lower chamber of Congress approves articles of impeachment, a vote is then held in the Senate. A two-thirds majority vote would be needed in the Senate to remove the president from office.

Trump became the third president in US history to be impeached, following the impeachments of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson. Neither Johnson nor Clinton were convicted by the Senate.

With Republicans in control of the Senate, Trump’s acquittal also seems likely.

In 1974, then President Richard Nixon resigned during his second term after it became certain he would be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate over the Watergate scandal.

To formally launch a trial in the upper chamber of Congress, the 100-member Senate must pass a resolution with a simple majority authorizing the proceeding. But in order to do that, the House must first transmit the articles of impeachment. 

Pelosi, however, says she will not deliver the documents until Democrats “know what sort of trial the Senate will conduct.” McConnell is refusing to agree to any of that in advance and cites the 1999 Clinton trial as a precedent. 

In their dispute over how to move forward, both parties are citing the 1999 impeachment trial of Clinton, accusing each other of departing from what they view as precedents set by that trial.

Clinton’s trial in the Senate began on January 7, 1999, more than two weeks after he was impeached by the House on charges of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice with regard to a sex scandal investigation.

Trump is showing signs of increasing frustration with the uncertainty surrounding his Senate trial. He spent the Christmas holiday complaining and blasting Democrats over the impeachment.  

The House approved two articles of impeachment against Trump on December 18 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

An impeachment probe was launched in September after an anonymous intelligence community whistleblower accused the president of pressing Ukraine’s president to investigate Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, as well as a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

Source: Presstv

Almost US$1 billion was spent on political advertising this year in the United States, according to a report.

The company Advertising Analytics said on Friday that of the $998.4 million was spent on political advertising, while $351 million was spent on the 2020 presidential primaries.

Advertising Analytics predicted that a total of $6 billion will be spent during the 2020 election cycle. Over a dozen Democrats and three Republicans are competing in the 2020 presidential election.

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has alone spent about $124 million in advertisements since joining the presidential race last month.

Democratic candidate businessman Tom Steyer spend the second most, purchasing $83 million worth of ads, according to Politico.

Some 485 million was spent on political advertising in Washington D.C.

According to former US Democratic senator Mike Gravel, US politics is dominated by big money and its role.

American political writer Stephen Lendman has said that the United States is controlled by big money, wealthy people whose interests are served by the government and other public institutions at the expense of ordinary Americans.

In the 2010 Citizens United case ruling, the US Supreme Court allowed unlimited independent spending by corporations in elections.

According to a study published by the New York Times, wealthy individuals and corporations have begun to replace powerless people as direct beneficiaries of the US political system and the Constitution.

Source: Presstv

US Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has overtaken former Vice President Joe Biden in head to head matchup with President Donald Trump, a new poll shows.

The survey, conducted between December 18 and 19 by Ipsos/Reuters, found that 39 percent of US voters favored Sanders over Trump, compared to 37 percent who preferred Biden over the Republican president.

Biden has maintained a steady lead in national polls over other top candidates for several weeks, but primary voters have far from made up their minds.

Recent surveys have determined that Sanders enjoys more support among Hispanic voters and young people between 18 and 29 years old, demographics likely fueling his late-stage surge to the top of the Democratic field.

In the past, Sanders has criticized Biden for his views on domestic issues and foreign policies towards other countries.

Sanders began to eclipse Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts after the fourth Democratic debate, when multiple candidates attacked Warren on how she would fund her health care plan.

In the Ipsos/Reuters poll, Sanders is supported by more independents (21 percent) and Democrats (74 percent) than both Biden and Warren in matchups against Trump.

Sanders, 78, would become America’s first Jewish president if elected. Nonetheless, he has called on the US government to withhold military aid to Israel if it continues to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank in Palestine.

“I would use the leverage, $3.8 billion is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to Israel,” Sanders said in November at the annual convention of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group.

“I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza,” Sanders added, referring to the annual amount of military aid that the United States currently gives to Israel.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has denounced the ongoing impeachment proceedings as “unfair” and claimed that House Democrats lacked evidence to make a “case” against him.

Addressing a meeting of conservative students in Florida on Saturday, Trump blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for delaying sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate and claimed that Democrats had “no case” to impeach him.

Trump called Pelosi “crazy Nancy,” and said the House Democrats were pursuing an “illegal unconstitutional, and hyper-partisan impeachment.”

“They really don’t believe in democracy, they can’t,” Trump said. “They are violating the Constitution.”

The US president also criticized Republicans who do not support his administration’s agenda, saying, the so-called “Never Trumpers” were “the dumbest human beings on earth.”

Trump has already accused the Democrats of stalling the impeachment proceedings and called for an “immediate trial” in the Senate.

In a historic vote on Wednesday, the US House of Representative impeached the Republican president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, which stemmed from his pressure on Ukraine to investigate his political rivals as he withheld US aid. No Republicans voted in favor of the impeachment articles, while two Democrats voted against the first charge and three against the second.

Trump argued that the lack of defectors among the GOP shows that “the Republicans have never been so united” while the lack of consensus among Democrats is yet another indicator that their case “is so bad that they don’t even want to go to trial!”

A two-thirds majority vote would be needed in the Senate to remove the president from office. With Republicans in control of the upper chamber, Trump’s acquittal in a trial — scheduled to be held in January — seems certain.

House Democrats launched the inquiry against Trump in September after an unknown whistleblower alleged the Republican president pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Democrats are looking into whether Trump abused his power by withholding $391 million in US security aid to Ukraine in exchange for the investigation.

Trump has repeatedly denounced the impeachment inquiry against him as “a hoax.”

Majority of voters favor Trump impeachment and removal: Poll

According to a new poll released on Friday, a majority of registered US voters supported impeaching and removing Trump from office.                          

The poll, conducted by The Politico/Morning Consult, found that 52 percent of voters supported the House’s decision to impeach Trump and 51 percent would support a decision by the Senate to remove him.

Eighty-five percent of Democrats said they approved of impeachment while just 17 percent of Republicans were of the the same opinion.

Independents were fairly divided, as 48 percent said they approved of the impeachment while 41 percent said the opposed it. 

The poll was carried out among a total of 1,387 registered voters surveyed between December 19 and 20, which came after the House voted to approve articles of impeachment against Trump. The margin of error in their responses was plus or minus three percentage points.

Manuel Marrero Cruz has been named Cuba’s prime minister, taking a political post that had been abolished more than four decades ago.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Saturday named the 56-year-old Marrero — who served as Cuba’s tourism minister for almost 16 years — as head of the government for a five-year term.

The post was last held by charismatic leader Fidel Castro in 1976. But it was abolished when Castro transitioned to the presidency, taking over from Osvaldo Dorticos after the country’s constitution was restructured.

A newer constitution was recognized in Cuba late last year, reviving the prime ministerial position and delegating some of the president’s responsibilities to the prime minister.

The premier has the power to hire and fire state employees and is in overall control of provincial governors — another position restored under the new constitution.

He is nominated by the president and approved by the National Assembly.

The revival of the prime minister’s post in Cuba is seen as part of a process of decentralization and generational change.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump pressed his Republican allies Thursday to exert rigid control of his Senate trial and ensure a swift exoneration, a day after he was impeached in a historic rebuke by the House of Representatives.

A bitter fight looms over the coming trial, expected to begin as early as the second week of January, with Senate leaders already drawing battle lines over the evidence that will be allowed.

But its fate was left in limbo late Thursday when the Senate’s powerful majority leader, Mitch McConnell signalled the standoff with Democrats over trial particulars would continue into the new year.

“We remain at an impasse on these logistics,” McConnell said on the floor, as he announced the Senate had completed its business until January.

Trump seized on the uncertainty to attack House Democrats for seeking to demand key witnesses or dictate how McConnell should run the process.

“I want an immediate trial!” he boomed on Twitter.

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump

So after the Democrats gave me no Due Process in the House, no lawyers, no witnesses, no nothing, they now want to tell the Senate how to run their trial. Actually, they have zero proof of anything, they will never even show up. They want out. I want an immediate trial!

Trump is charged with abuse of office and obstruction of Congress but Democrats, who led the three-month House investigation, are threatening to delay sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate until they are reassured the process will be fair.

“I got Impeached last night without one Republican vote being cast with the Do Nothing Dems on their continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history,” Trump tweeted.

“Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate, but it’s Senate’s call!”

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump

I got Impeached last night without one Republican vote being cast with the Do Nothing Dems on their continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history. Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate, but it’s Senate’s call!

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump

I got Impeached last night without one Republican vote being cast with the Do Nothing Dems on their continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history. Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate, but it’s Senate’s call!

Trump, the third president in US history to be impeached, suggested that the Democrats would “lose by default” if they decided not to show up at a date determined by the Senate.

Stark partisan divide 

The House voted along party lines Wednesday to charge Trump with abuse of power for pressuring Ukraine’s president to investigate his potential White House challenger in 2020, the veteran Democrat Joe Biden.

Lawmakers also approved a second article of impeachment, obstruction of the congressional probe into his Ukraine dealings.

The vote leaves a permanent stain on Trump’s legacy — one that he appeared determined to mask with acquittal by the Senate.

At the White House Trump welcomed one of the two Democrats who voted against impeachment, congressman Jeff Van Drew, who announced he was switching parties to join the Republicans.

“You know what? It’s a phony deal and they cheapen the word ‘impeachment,'” Trump said.

“That should never again happen to another president.”

The Senate Republicans have a 53-47 majority that makes the math for clearing Trump straightforward — conviction and removal would require a two-thirds guilty vote on either charge.

The House must formally transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate for the case to be taken up there.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi balked at immediately transmitting them, saying she wants to understand what the parameters of the trial will be before naming House managers who will prosecute the case before the senators.

Minutes after Wednesday’s vote, Democrats began pushing for four current and former White House aides with direct knowledge of Trump’s Ukraine dealings to testify.

Trump blocked all four from testifying in the House, and Democrats believe their appearances at trial would bolster the case for conviction.

‘Slapdash case’ 

In a floor speech Thursday, McConnell ridiculed the witness demand and the evidence used as the basis for the impeachment articles.

He accused Democrats of a “partisan crusade” and said they had conducted the “most rushed, the least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.”

No two impeachments are quite the same, but Trump was charged 84 days after Pelosi announced the inquiry.

Lawmakers voted to send Bill Clinton to a Senate trial 72 days after the inquiry was authorized while Richard Nixon resigned 183 days into his impeachment.

Andrew Johnson’s impeachment in 1868 took less than a week, although it is generally held up as the most frivolous. 

McConnell, who has substantial power in planning the Senate trial this time around, urged fellow jurors to exonerate Trump.

“The Senate must put this right. There is only one outcome that is suited to the paucity of evidence, the failed inquiry, the slapdash case,” he said.

But top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer blasted him for prejudging the case and rejecting the call for witnesses.

“Is the president’s case so weak that none of the president’s men can defend him under oath?” Schumer asked.

(AFP)

Donald Trump on Wednesday became the third U.S. president to be impeached as the House of Representatives formally charged him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in a historic step that will inflame partisan tensions across a deeply divided America.

The Democratic-led House’s passage of two articles of impeachment on a mostly party-line vote sets the stage for a trial next month in the Republican-controlled Senate – friendlier terrain for Trump – on whether to convict and remove him from office.

No president in the 243-year history of the United States has been removed from office by impeachment. That would require a two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate, meaning at least 20 Republicans would have to join Democrats in voting against Trump – and none have indicated they will.

The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, has predicted there is “no chance” his chamber will remove Trump when it holds its trial. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said after the vote she would wait to name the House managers, or prosecutors, until she knew more about the procedures for the Senate trial. She did not specify when she would send the articles to the Senate.

“So far, we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” Pelosi told reporters.

Trump, 73, is accused of abusing his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, as well as a discredited theory that Democrats conspired with Ukraine to meddle in the 2016 election.

Joe Biden✔@JoeBiden

President Trump abused his power, violated his oath of office, and betrayed our nation. This is a solemn moment for our country. But in the United States of America, no one is above the law — not even the President.

Democrats said Trump held back $391 million in security aid intended to combat Russia-backed separatists and a coveted White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as leverage to coerce Kiev into interfering in the 2020 election by smearing Biden.

The second article accused Trump of obstruction of Congress by directing administration officials and agencies not to comply with lawful House subpoenas for testimony and documents related to impeachment.

Trump, who is seeking another four-year term in the November 2020 presidential election, has denied wrongdoing and called the impeachment inquiry launched by Pelosi in September a “witch hunt.”

At a raucous rally for his re-election in Battle Creek, Michigan, as the House voted, Trump said the impeachment would be a “mark of shame” for Democrats and Pelosi, and cost them in the 2020 election.

“This lawless, partisan impeachment is a political suicide march for the Democrat Party,” Trump said. “They’re the ones who should be impeached, every one of them.”

‘Here to defend democracy’

During a daylong debate before the vote, Pelosi read the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance and said: “We are here to defend democracy for the people.”

“If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary,” Pelosi said.

As the debate unfolded, Republicans accused Democrats of seeking to use an unfair, rigged process to nullify the 2016 election and influence the 2020 vote.

“The matter before the House today is based solely on a fundamental hatred of our president. It’s a sham, a witch hunt – and it’s tantamount to a coup against the duly elected president of the United States,” Republican Representative Mike Rogers said.

Republican Representative Mike Kelly compared the impeachment to the Japanese attack on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor in 1941, calling the House proceedings another “date that will live in infamy” – similar to the words Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt used to describe the raid that killed about 2,400 people and led to America’s entry into World War Two.

The abuse of power article was passed on a 230-197 vote and the obstruction article was passed 229-198. All of the House Republicans opposed the articles, and two Democrats, Collin Peterson and Jeff Van Drew, voted no on both. Democrat Jared Golden voted against the obstruction charge but for abuse of power.

“The only part of the vote that was bipartisan was in opposition. The President is just getting stronger while support for the Democrats’ political theater has faded,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement.

U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate, voted present on both articles, declaring in a statement: “I could not in good conscience vote either yes or no.”

Polarised country

Trump’s election has polarised the United States, dividing families and friends and making it more difficult for politicians in Washington to find middle ground as they try to confront pressing challenges like the rise of China and climate change.

The impeachment vote comes ahead of Trump’s re-election campaign, which will pit him against the winner among a field of Democratic contenders, including Biden, who have repeatedly criticized Trump’s conduct in office and promised to make it a key issue.

“President Trump abused his power, violated his oath of office, and betrayed our nation,” Biden said on Twitter after the vote, adding: “In the United States of America, no one is above the law — not even the president.”

Reuters/Ipsos polls show that while most Democrats want to see him impeached, most Republicans do not. Televised hearings last month that were meant to build public support for impeachment appear to have pushed the two sides further apart.

The House vote on Wednesday was just the latest, but also unquestionably the biggest, in a string of controversies that have buffeted the turbulent presidency of the New York real estate mogul and former reality TV personality.

Central to the impeachment inquiry was a July 25 telephone call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who had joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was U.S. vice president.

Trump has accused the Bidens of corruption without offering evidence. They have denied wrongdoing.

A rough transcript of the call released by the White House showed Trump asking Zelenskiy, elected only three months earlier and eager for American support, to “do us a favor” and conduct the investigations in coordination with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani in the prior months had engaged in a concerted effort to persuade Ukraine to carry out the investigations. Testimony before House committees showed that Giuliani helped engineer Trump’s removal last May of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who was perceived as a roadblock to those investigations.

Impeachment is a remedy devised by the United States’ founders, wary of a monarch on American soil after breaking away from Britain and King George III in the 18th century, to enable Congress to remove a president who has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Only two previous presidents have been impeached. The House in 1998 impeached President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice arising from a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern, but the Senate acquitted him. The House impeached President Andrew Johnson in 1868, focused on his removal of the secretary of war, but he was acquitted by one vote in the Senate.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned after the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment in the Watergate corruption scandal but before the full House could pass them.

(REUTERS)