House set for historic and partisan vote to impeach Trump

The House on Wednesday is set to impeach President Trump along strictly partisan lines, setting up a January Senate trial that has already provoked a battle between Democrats and Republicans that will consume Congress in the new year.

In defiance of indifferent and sagging poll numbers for impeachment, House Democrats are poised to approve two articles of impeachment accusing Trump of abusing power and obstructing Congress.

The looming vote would make Trump the third president in history to be impeached by the House. He’ll join President Bill Clinton, who was impeached in 1998, and President Andrew Johnson, who was impeached in 1868. No president has been ejected from office, though in 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal when it became clear sufficient votes existed in the House to impeach him and in the Senate to convict and remove him.

House approval will send the impeachment articles to the Senate, which will hold a trial in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said.

Senate Democrats and Republicans are already battling over the trial. McConnell wants a quick vote to dismiss the charges against the president while Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, wants to subpoena key Trump administration officials who refused to testify in the House impeachment investigation.

Public support for impeachment has remained stagnant and declining in some cases after weeks of hearings and depositions involving former and current Trump administration officials who testified both in public and in closed-door sessions.

Almost all House Democratic lawmakers are nonetheless expected to vote in favor of the two impeachment articles on Wednesday. Only a handful of Democrats are expected to vote against impeachment, party lawmakers said.