President Donald Trump is now the third president to have ever been impeached in the history of the United States after the House of Representatives officially voted to pass two articles of impeachment on Wednesday evening.

After several hours of debate in which House Republicans disgraced themselves by comparing the impeachment of Trump to the trial of Jesus by Pontius Pilate, the December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692, the full House voted on the first article of impeachment charging Trump with abuse of power, which passed 230-197.

The full House then voted on the second article of impeachment charging Trump with obstruction of Congress, which passed 229-198.

Trump, who spent the entire day whining about the impeachment vote on Twitter, is now the third president to ever be impeached, a permanent stain on his already disgraced legacy. The first president to be impeached was Andrew Johnson in 1868. The Senate failed to convict him by a single vote. The second president to be impeached was Bill Clinton in 1998-1999 in a partisan witch hunt conducted by Republicans over a lie about consensual sex with an intern. The Senate acquitted Clinton by a majority margin on the first charge and by a tie vote on the second.

Former President Richard Nixon would have been the second to be impeached but he resigned before the House could vote on the articles of impeachment, sparing himself from what would have certainly been a sure conviction by the Senate.

Trump is being impeached because he bribed Ukraine by withholding military aide the country needed to fight Russian aggression to force President Zelensky to announce a sham investigation into former Vice-President Joe Biden, Trump’s potential 2020 Election opponent, in order to dig up dirt to use against him, which would be election interference solicited by the president from a foreign nation. Trump went on to bury evidence of his crimes and kept witnesses from complying with subpoenas calling on them to testify during impeachment hearings.

The articles will now go to the Senate and an impeachment trial will take place for the first time since 1999. The question is whether Senate Republicans, who have the majority, will run a fair trial looking at the evidence and listening to witness testimony or will they run a circus trial rigged by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in coordination with Trump himself?

Regardless, Trump has now been impeached, and that fact will forever taint his presidency. But he only has himself to blame because he deserved to be impeached. He abused the office he holds and refused to cooperate with the House investigation into his misconduct.

This vote was a vote to defend democracy and the Constitution, and Democrats conducted themselves with dignity while Republicans humiliated themselves in a desperate effort to protect a criminal. Their failure to support impeachment will shame them in perpetuity and Americans, a majority of whom supported impeachment, will get a say against Trump and Republicans in 2020.

In the end, history will judge Trump and Republicans, and they won’t like the verdict.

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