The United States House of Representatives is prepared to approve the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
For nearly three months, Trump has fought the impeachment inquiry at every turn, blocking witness testimony, denying documents and complaining on Twitter that no president has ever suffered such mistreatment at the hands of his political enemies.
But congressional investigators have pushed inexorably toward the scene expected to play out on the House floor on Wednesday evening, when members will vote on charges that Trump abused the powers of his office and obstructed Congress in service of a Ukraine scheme meant to harm a political rival, former vice-president Joe Biden.
With a solid Democratic majority in the chamber and a wave of party moderates announcing their support for impeachment, the vote seemed sure to go against Trump by a comfortable margin, hitching him forever to Bill Clinton (1998) and Andrew Johnson (1868) as the only US presidents to be impeached. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the House could vote to impeach him.
Trump would then face a trial early next year in the Republican-controlled Senate. With a two-thirds majority of senators needed to convict Trump and remove him from office, his survival – until the November 2020 election, at least – seems likely.
