President Trump was impeached a second time by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday in a largely party-line vote that saw a handful of Republicans join Democrats to blame the outgoing commander-in-chief for sparking last week’s Capitol siege.
The measure reached 217 “yea” votes shortly after 4:20 p.m. to make Trump the only president to be impeached twice.
The final vote was 232-197, with 10 Republicans crossing party lines and four Republicans not voting when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) announced around 4:35 p.m.
No members of the GOP voted in 2019 to impeach Trump the first time.
The move set the stage for a Senate trial that a spokesman for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said won’t begin before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
Before the vote, seven Republicans publicly pledged to side against Trump: Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, John Katko of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan, Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, and Peter Meijer of Michigan.
