Couple of things around the process that you may not be aware of.
The impeachment process is operating under a set of parameters put in place by Ken Starr, a Republican and former US solicitor general, who ran the Impeachment of Clinton.
The current stage under way of questioning witnesses, this is done in private as a way of protecting identities, and evidence. Both Democrats and Republicans are part of this process, with both parties given equal time to question witnesses, in a turn about style.
The house has only just voted to proceed with the impeachment process, which after having gained the evidence from the questioning, is deemed worthy to move forward. The next stage will be a formal vote in the house to impeach and the public questioning of witnesses. They are not there yet.
The vote to move forward was essentially was along party lines, the Democrats hold the majority in the house, so it passed.
Should the President be impeached there will be a trial in the senate to remove him from office. The Republicans hold the majority in the senate, so the president is unlikely to be removed. Politicians are a funny bunch though and self preservation is a thought never far from their mind.
For the President to be removed from office would require 20 Republicans to vote with the Democrats.
To appreciate how unusual the claims of the president, his lawyers, and his allies in Congress are, it is helpful to know one thing—that the law of impeachment and the rules of the House are clear and indisputable: The Constitution provides that the House has “the sole power of impeachment,” and Article I provides further that the House and the Senate each have the power to determine their own rules of internal governance.
That is all one needs to know to understand why the impeachment inquiry thus far has been fully legitimate—because the Constitution leaves it to the House alone to determine how to initiate and conduct an impeachment inquiry. These are the same rules that the Republicans put into place when they last commanded a majority in the House. Trey Gowdy, a former Republican member of Congress, has said he agrees “100 percent with” the Democrats’ use of closed-door hearings, with Republican members present, to protect the integrity and credibility of its fact-finding. Gowdy should know, since he followed the exact same rules, including using closed-door hearings, when his committee investigated the 2012 attack in Benghazi. No Republican complained then.
