Dec 13, 2019
House Judiciary Committee approves articles of impeachment against Trump
Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — on Friday.
Why it matters: The party-line 23-17 votes, which were delayed after a marathon markup hearing on Thursday lasted until almost midnight, completes the House committees' impeachment work and advances the articles to the House chamber for a full floor vote next week.
- After more than 14 hours of debate about altering the articles, each of the five amendments introduced by Republicans were voted down by the committee.
- The only change that passed the committee was the substitution of "Donald John Trump" instead of "Donald J. Trump."
- Substantively, the final text was unchanged.
What's next: As of now, the impeachment vote is expected to happen on Wednesday, sandwiched between a Tuesday vote on funding the government and a Thursday vote on the USMCA trade deal.
- However, members warn that until it's officially scheduled the timeline could still change.
- Multiple Democratic members, including those in vulnerable districts that voted for Trump, don't expect a lot of Democrats to vote against the articles.
- But they do agree that there will likely be more defectors than there were on the vote launching a formal impeachment inquiry. Most members and committee staffers guess that roughly four to six moderate Democrats will break ranks.