After becoming only the third president in American history to be impeached, Donald Trump has been attempting to argue that he had not received the historic black mark on his record.
“I don’t feel like I’m being impeached,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, a day after the House voted to impeach him. “It’s a hoax, it’s a setup, it’s a horrible thing they did.”
The impeachment vote was not a “hoax” or a “setup.” The House voted to approve two articles of impeachment based on extensive testimony that he held up aid to Ukraine to try to pressure the country to dig up dirt on his political rivals, along with the attempt to obstruct the investigation into his actions.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from using his Twitter account to claim the impeachment isn’t real and to amplify supporters making the same false claim.
He described the vote as a “phony impeachment HOAX” and a “scam,” while attacking Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not immediately sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Pelosi has said she is waiting to send the impeachment to the Senate until she can be assured of a fair trial after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to rig proceedings in Trump’s favor.
“Trump has not been impeached. The house can’t impeach. They can only vote for impeachment,” said Twitter user @Incarcerated_ET in a tweet that Trump retweeted to his 67.8 million followers.
That is wrong, as the Constitution clearly states that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment and “[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”
Trump’s reelection campaign also ran $650,000 worth of Facebook ads claiming that the impeachment vote was “unconstitutional,” a claim Trump has previously made.
However, despite Trump’s protests and tweets, the congressional record will forever show two votes in the affirmative for “Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
