First impeachment of Donald Trump

The first impeachment of Donald Trump (45th President of the United States) began on December 18, 2019, during the 116th United States Congress, when the House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump.

Trump's impeachment came after a formal House inquiry found that he had solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election to help his re-election bid, and then obstructed the inquiry itself by telling his administration officials to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony. The inquiry reported that Trump withheld military aid and an invitation to the White House from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in order to influence Ukraine to announce an investigation into Trump's political opponent Joe Biden, and to promote a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. A phone call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019, was particularly important according to Congressional testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a member of the National Security Council who listened to the call from the White House Situation Room.

The inquiry stage of Trump's impeachment lasted from September to November 2019 in the wake of Vindman's August whistleblower complaint alleging Trump's abuse of power. In October, three congressional committees (Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs) deposed witnesses. In November, the House Intelligence Committee held a number of public hearings in which witnesses testified publicly; on December 3, the committee voted 13–9 (along party lines) to adopt a final report. The total number of witnesses testifying, either publicly or in closed-door sessions, was 17. A set of impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee began on December 4; on December 13, the committee voted 23–17 (along party lines) to recommend two articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The committee released a lengthy report on the impeachment articles on December 16. Two days later, the full House approved both articles in a mostly party-line vote, with all Republicans opposing both charges, and two and three Democrats opposing charges 1 (abuse of power) and 2 (obstruction of Congress), respectively. This made Trump the third U.S. president in history to be impeached, and marked the first fully partisan impeachment, wherein a U.S. president was impeached without support for the impeachment from the president's own party.

The articles were submitted to the Senate on January 16, 2020, initiating the trial. The trial saw no witnesses or documents being subpoenaed, as Republican senators rejected attempts to introduce subpoenas. On February 5, Trump was acquitted on both counts by the Senate, as neither count received 67 votes to convict. On Article I, abuse of power, the vote was 48 for conviction and 52 for acquittal. On Article II, obstruction of Congress, the vote was 47 for conviction and 53 for acquittal. Republican Mitt Romney, the only senator to break party lines, became the first U.S. senator to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial, voting to convict on Article I but acquit on Article II. Trump remained in office for the remainder of his term; however, he was impeached for a second time in 2021 following the January 6 United States Capitol attack, making him the first U.S. president in history to be impeached twice. Trump was once again acquitted by the senate, with the vote notably occurring on February 13, 2021, over three weeks after Trump had left office following the results of the 2020 election.

Two days after the acquittal, Trump fired two witnesses who had testified about his conduct in the impeachment inquiry: Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Alexander Vindman, together with Vindman's twin brother, Yevgeny.

On June 23, 2023, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that he supported an effort to hold a vote "expunging" both impeachments of Trump.