:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65326822/GettyImages_1171232343.0.jpg)
President Donald Trump has been impeached, but whether he’ll be removed from office is up to the Republican-controlled Senate. Two articles of impeachment against Trump will soon go to the Senate for an official impeachment trial that will decide his fate.
It all started with a whistleblower complaint filed by a US intelligence official in August that alleged Trump had abused his power to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals on a July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — and that the White House tried to conceal it. That kicked off the House Democrats’ inquiry.
To prove his innocence, Trump authorized “the complete, fully declassified and unredacted transcript” of his conversation with the Ukrainian leader. The White House then released a readout of the call (not a verbatim transcript, as the president claims).
The readout clearly shows that Trump tried to pressure the new president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s family ahead of the 2020 election — in exchange for a coveted White House meeting with Trump and perhaps even continued US military assistance to the country.
Trump has admitted to discussing Biden with Ukraine, but he maintains that the July phone conversation was “a very friendly and totally appropriate call” and that he did nothing wrong.
However, the growing scandal, including the revelation that Trump withheld millions in military aid to Ukraine ahead of his call with Zelensky, galvanized Democratic lawmakers to impeach.
Read our guide to impeachment for the process, politics, and key players at the heart of the scandal so far, and follow Vox for updates on the story: