The U.S. President, Donald Trump, has been impeached by the country’s House of Representatives.
The house voted late Wednesday to impeach the president on his 1,062nd day in office for alleged obstruction of Congress and abuse of power related to his dealings with Ukraine.
A trial will now be set up in the Senate to decide whether he remains in office.
Mr Trump is only the third U.S. President to face such trial and if the odds go against him, he will become the first to be removed from office via the impeachment process.
After several hours of heated dispute on the House floor between two leading parties in the U.S – Democrats and Republicans – the lawmakers voted largely along party lines.
The proceedings on Wednesday began with members of Mr Trump’s Republican Party calling for votes on procedural issues in an effort to frustrate the process.
Democrats control the House 233 to 197 seats over Republicans, with one independent and four vacancies.
According to the Washington post, the Democratic-controlled House passed two articles of impeachment against Trump — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — related to the president’s attempts to withhold military aid to Ukraine and pressure its government to investigate former vice president Joe Biden.
Mr Biden is a potential presidential candidate of the Democratic Party and could be Mr Trump’s major challenger in the upcoming 2020 U.S general elections.
The House voted 230 to 197 to approve the article accusing the president of abuse of power. On the obstruction of Congress vote, which followed soon after, the tally was 229 to 198.
Trump’s Republican party members in the house all voted against both articles, but it was not enough to stop the process.
The Senate trial on whether to remove the president is expected to begin in early January.
Should Mr Trump eventually be removed, Vice President Mike Spence will step in.
However, the Republican Party-controlled Senate is expected to favour the president. At least two-thirds of senators are required to remove the president from office unlike in the House where a simple majority is required for impeachment.
Earlier before the proceeding commenced in the house, Mr Trump, the 45th U.S president, took to Twitter to ask his millions of followers to say a prayer.
“Can you believe that I will be impeached today by the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, AND I DID NOTHING WRONG! A terrible Thing”, Read the Transcripts.
“This should never happen to another President again. Say a PRAYER!” Mr Trump posted.
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