Washington, July 18 (IANS) The US House of Representatives has killed a resolution to impeach US President Donald Trump over his “racist” tweets against four Democratic lawmakers.

The House on Wednesday voted 332-95 to table the bill, signifying a deeply divided Democratic Party on whether to impeach Trump, especially after Trump fired racially charged tweets at progressive lawmakers that evoked outcry from both sides of the aisle, Xinhua reported.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to persuade fellow Democratic lawmakers that impeaching Trump was not the best strategy, but frustration against the Trump administration over immigration policies, obstruction of justice allegations and personal attacks on political opponents gave a sizable portion of House Democrats enough reason to rebel against party leadership and back impeachment proceedings.

Trump on Sunday told a group of four ethnic minority female lawmakers to “go back” to the “places from which they came,” and later doubled down on his position in saying that the lawmakers “hate” the US.

The remarks received universal criticism from the Democratic Party, and many Republican lawmakers also said such statements were inappropriate.

The US House of Representatives voted Tuesday to condemn Trump for the remarks, with four Republican lawmakers joining the ranks of Democrats in supporting the bill.

According to the Pew Research Center, there are currently 52 voting members in the House and 16 members in the Senate who are immigrants or children of immigrants, most of them are Democrats. </s> WASHINGTON — House Democrats rejected an attempt Wednesday to force a vote on impeaching President Donald Trump, showing that anger and frustration over the president’s racially-charged tweets and other actions have not yet convinced a majority to push for his removal.

The clash over impeachment came shortly before Democrats voted to hold in contempt Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas seeking information about why the Trump administration wanted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

It marked the first time the full House held members of Trump’s Cabinet in contempt since Democrats took over the chamber in January, and it came days after Trump announced he would give up his battle to use the census for what critics said was an effort to cut federal support for immigrant-heavy, largely Democratic districts.

The conflicting votes Wednesday thus reflected how far Democrats are willing to go — at least for now — as they confront Trump over an array of legal and political disputes, from getting access to his tax returns to oversight of security clearances at the White House.

They’ve struggled to pry documents and witnesses out of the Trump administration for congressional investigations, issuing subpoenas and going to court. But they’ve shied away from seeking impeachment, even while harshly denouncing the president.

On Tuesday the House passed a resolution, largely on party grounds, that “strongly condemned” Trump for telling four liberal members of Congress, all women of color and all U.S. citizens, to leave the country.

Although Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., strongly backed that resolution, she has pushed back against efforts to start impeachment proceedings against the president, in part because of concerns it would backfire against Democrats in the 2020 election.

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, tried to force a vote on impeaching Trump anyway Wednesday, introducing a resolution that called him “unfit to be president” and calling for his removal. For procedural reasons, the House was forced to consider — or derail — the resolution within two days.

Trump has “brought the high office of the president of the United States in contempt” and “sown seeds of discord among the people of the United States,” Green wrote.

He cited Trump’s racist tweets telling the four lawmakers to “go back” to the countries “from which they came.”

The House could have voted to proceed with the measure, formally opening a debate on the floor over whether the president should be impeached, but Pelosi and other Democrats helped block the effort. The measure was tabled by a bipartisan vote of 332 to 95, effectively killing it.

Green said he considered his effort worthwhile because 95 Democrats voted against sidelining his resolution, an increase over the two times he has previously tried to force a vote on impeachment.

“Whether we got 95 or 5, the point is we have to make a statement to the American people that there are some among us who believe that this president is unfit and should be impeached,” he said after the vote.

“That’s the end of it,” he told reporters after landing in Greenville, N.C., for a political rally.

Despite the vote, impeachment is gaining traction among some Democrats and emerging as a divisive issue in the party. Several Democrats running for president, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have urged Congress to start impeachment proceedings.

Pelosi has warned that an impeachment probe could draw attention away from Democrats’ policy goals, energize Trump’s supporters and ultimately be thwarted by the Republican-controlled Senate, which almost certainly would not vote to convict the president.

Green’s resolution did not address the investigation led by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who uncovered multiple episodes where Trump tried to limit or block the investigation into whether Trump or his aides assisted Russian interference in the 2016 election. Some 34 people ultimately were charged or indicted, but no Americans were accused of conspiring with the Russians.

Mueller is scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill next Wednesday and his testimony — his first since the redacted version of his report was released in mid-April — could spur other Democrats to call for impeachment.

Green’s resolution cited the House vote to censure Trump for his racist tweets about four freshmen lawmakers: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.

Ocasio-Cortez was among those who voted for Green’s resolution, and she described Trump’s presidency as an emergency that needs to be addressed by removing him from office.

“I think that each day that passes our democracy, our institutions, are imperiled,” she said.

The House later voted 230 to 198 to hold Barr and Ross in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas regarding next year’s census.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the reason Ross had provided for adding the citizenship question — to help enforce the Voting Rights Act — was “contrived.” The justices blocked the Commerce Department from adding the question unless administration officials could provide a more compelling rationale.

Critics say the administration sought to suppress census turnout in Democratic-majority states like California, where large immigrant populations would be afraid to respond. That would lead to a drop in congressional seats and federal funds for those states.

The House Reform and Oversight Committee voted last month to advance the contempt resolution to the full House after Barr and Ross declined to share documents detailing the rationale for the citizenship question. The contempt citation will be automatically referred to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., for prosecution, but Barr oversees that office so it is unlikely to proceed. </s> (CNN) The House on Wednesday easily defeated an effort from a Texas Democrat to impeach President Donald Trump in a vote that highlighted the Democratic fissures when it comes to impeachment.

Rep. Al Green was able to force the vote under House rules — the first that Congress has taken related to impeachment since Democrats took control of the chamber this year — in what amounted to the most direct challenge yet to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's handling of impeachment.

The 332-95 vote divided Democrats, with 95 — a little more than 40% of the Democratic caucus -- voting against tabling it, or voting to keep it alive. There were 137 Democrats who joined all Republicans in voting to defeat the measure.

Green's decision to bring up his resolution presented a dilemma for impeachment supporters and moderate Democrats alike, as they're now on the record for their vote, even if Green's resolution was only focused on one issue — what he says is the President's "bigotry and racism" — out of many Democrats are wrestling with on whether to move forward on impeachment.

Green was able to force the House to take up his impeachment articles because it's considered a privileged resolution under the House rules. While any House member can introduce a privileged resolution on the floor — and Green introduced similar resolutions twice while Republicans were control — Pelosi has until now held her party back from doing so since Democrats took control of chamber, despite more than 80 members pushing for the start of an impeachment inquiry.

Republicans helped Democrats table the resolution to show bipartisan opposition to impeaching the President on the grounds laid out in the Green resolution, according to a senior GOP leadership aide. The White House wanted a strong vote to kill the resolution, a source familiar with White House thinking said.

Democrats debated how to handle Green's resolution, and they were considering a vote to delay consideration of the measure, according to a House leadership aide. The aide said that Democrats wanted to delay the vote to provide more time to educate the caucus on the resolution and the implications of it. But Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stepped in and offered the motion to table the resolution, which is given primary consideration on the floor before a motion to postpone, according to a Republican aide.

Trump cheered the vote at his North Carolina rally Wednesday evening.

"I just heard that the US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted to kill the most ridiculous project I have ever been involved in. The resolution -- how stupid is that -- on impeachment," he said.

Ahead of the vote, Green dismissed calls from within his party to hold off on the resolution, which he introduced Tuesday evening, arguing that impeachment should follow Tuesday's House vote that condemned the President's racist tweets.

"I should not hold off, we should go forward as expeditiously as possible and we should do so because on yesterday we convicted the President ... The condemnation was a conviction. Today we have the opportunity to punish," Green said a reference to the resolution that passed Tuesday condemning racist language used by the President. "As a result of what we did yesterday, the President suffers no harm, he doesn't have to pay any fine, he's not going to lose his job. But today we have the opportunity to punish."

Democrats have been wrestling with the question of impeachment since taking control of the House, and now more than a third of House Democrats publicly support opening an impeachment inquiry. But Pelosi has resisted those efforts, saying they should not move forward with impeachment unless the public is on their side.

"With all the respect in the world for him, we have six committees that are working on following the facts in terms of any abuse of power, obstruction of justice and the rest that the President may have engaged in," Pelosi said. "That is the serious path that we are on, not that Mr. Green is not serious, but we'll deal with that on the floor."

Green brought up the impeachment resolution a week before special counsel Robert Mueller testifies publicly before the House, an event that many impeachment backers say will be key to sway the public — and skeptical lawmakers — on impeachment.

"Our focus should be on making sure that the Mueller hearing goes well," said House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Other House Democrats who support beginning an impeachment inquiry — and in some cases moving forward with articles of impeachment — said they would support Green's measure, even if they didn't agree with his decision to bring it up now.

"If I thought it was a really good idea I'd have done it myself," said Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat who will support Green's resolution.

"I don't think this is the wisest moment," said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "I mean, believe me, this is something that I wrestle with myself and I think that the president is unfit for office and so I need to think through it, but ... we have an important process ahead that we really need to follow."

But Green said he chose to move forward with his resolution because he thinks Congress should send Trump "a powerful message that this country will not tolerate bigotry, racism, hate, xenophobia, Islamophobia."

He noted that his impeachment resolution is not connected to Mueller or the findings of his investigation.

"You don't delay justice. The Mueller hearing has nothing to do with what we're doing now. The Mueller hearing is all about obstruction, this is about bigotry and racism and that racism that's been infused into policy," Green said.

In December 2017 and January 2018, Green also introduced privileged impeachment resolutions, which were both tabbed by the Republican-led House. The resolutions were killed in votes of 364-58 and 355-66, respectively, with a majority of Democrats joining Republicans to defeat them in both cases.

The number of Democrats voting with Green increased Wednesday to 95, up from 58 in the first vote and 66 in the second.

Even in defeat, Green said the vote was a positive development "because people are starting to understand this process."

And he said that he might bring impeachment resolutions to the floor in the future, potentially on other topics like obstruction.

"I don't want to ... but if it is not done by someone, I will," he said. "This resolution was the right thing to do ... the President at some point will be impeached."

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday. </s> President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 16, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House easily killed a maverick Democrat’s effort Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for his recent racial insults against lawmakers of color , in a vote that provided an early snapshot of just how divided Democrats are over trying to oust him in the shadow of the 2020 elections.

Democrats leaned against the resolution by Texas Rep. Al Green by about a 3-2 margin as the chamber killed the measure 332-95. The vote showed that so far, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been successful in her effort to prevent a Democratic stampede toward impeachment before additional evidence is developed that could win over a public that has so far been skeptical about ousting Trump.

Even so, the numbers also showed that the number of Democrats open to impeachment remains substantial. About two dozen more conversions would split the party’s caucus in half over an issue that could potentially dominate next year’s presidential and congressional campaigns.

“There’s a lot of grief, from a lot of different quarters,” Green, speaking to reporters after the vote, said of the reaction he’s received from colleagues. “But sometimes you just have to take a stand.”

Pelosi and other party leaders considered his resolution a premature exercise that needlessly forced vulnerable swing-district lawmakers to cast a perilous and divisive vote. It also risked deepening Democrats’ already raw rift over impeachment, dozens of the party’s most liberal lawmakers itching to oust Trump.

Recent polling has shown solid majorities oppose impeachment. Even if the Democratic-run House would vote to impeach Trump, the equivalent of filing formal charges, a trial by the Republican-led Senate would all but certainly acquit him, keeping him in office.

Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters earlier that six House committees are investigating Trump.

“That is the serious path we’re on,” she said.

Democrats are also eagerly awaiting next week’s scheduled public testimony to two House committees by special counsel Robert Mueller.

With Democrats preparing to defend their House majority in next year’s elections, Green’s measure put incumbents in closely divided districts in a difficult spot. Democrats owe their House majority to 39 challengers who won in 2018 in what had been GOP-held districts, places where moderate voters largely predominate.

“It’s not ideal for a lot of people to have to take that vote right now,” one of them, Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., said Wednesday of impeachment. She said “if and when” the House votes on impeaching Trump, it should happen when “we can make sure our constituents understand and can get behind” the move.

Democrats are also concerned that Republicans could use a failed impeachment vote to try taking the steam out of the continuing probes into Trump’s performance in office by arguing that the House had demonstrated it had no appetite for removing him from office.

“This is all they’ve ever wanted to do from the day of the election” in 2016, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a brief interview.

Green’s measure cites Trump’s recent “racist” comments imploring Democratic congresswomen of color to go back to their native countries. The House voted Tuesday largely along party lines to condemn those statements . His targets were Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

All are American and all but Omar were born in the U.S. They’ve also been among the party’s most outspoken advocates of impeachment.

Trump is “unfit to be President, unfit to represent the American values of decency and morality, respectability and civility, honesty and propriety, reputability and integrity, is unfit to defend the ideals that have made America great, unfit to defend liberty and justice for all,” Green’s resolution said.

Green’s resolution does not mention Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired with Russia to influence that year’s congressional election or whether the president obstructed Mueller’s probe.

Those threads have been why some Democrats have backed impeachment. More than 80 of the 235 House Democrats have said an impeachment inquiry is merited.

Mueller’s 448-page report detailed several episodes in which Trump tried to influence his investigation. Mueller said he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction and indicated in a May news conference that it was up to Congress to decide what to do.

Those who support an impeachment inquiry have argued that it would accelerate the process and bolster their arguments in court. Some Democrats are frustrated with the slow pace of their party’s investigations of the president. Democrats have had little success so far in their attempts to investigate beyond what Mueller detailed, as the White House has blocked several witnesses from answering questions.

Green’s measure was the third resolution to impeach Trump he has brought to the House floor since 2017. The eight-term veteran has spurned leadership entreaties to hold off in the past.

But while his first two efforts were symbolic because they came with Republicans controlling the House, this time Democrats run the chamber. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — The House easily killed a maverick Democrat's effort Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for his recent racial insults against lawmakers of color , in a vote that provided an early snapshot of just how divided Democrats are over trying to oust him in the shadow of the 2020 elections.

Democrats leaned against the resolution by Texas Rep. Al Green by about a 3-2 margin as the chamber killed the measure 332-95. The vote showed that so far, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been successful in her effort to prevent a Democratic stampede toward impeachment before additional evidence is developed that could win over a public that has so far been skeptical about ousting Trump.

Even so, the numbers also showed that the number of Democrats open to impeachment remains substantial. About two dozen more conversions would split the party's caucus in half over an issue that could potentially dominate next year's presidential and congressional campaigns.

"There's a lot of grief, from a lot of different quarters," Green, speaking to reporters after the vote, said of the reaction he's received from colleagues. "But sometimes you just have to take a stand."

Pelosi and other party leaders considered his resolution a premature exercise that needlessly forced vulnerable swing-district lawmakers to cast a perilous and divisive vote. It also risked deepening Democrats' already raw rift over impeachment, dozens of the party's most liberal lawmakers itching to oust Trump.

Recent polling has shown solid majorities oppose impeachment. Even if the Democratic-run House would vote to impeach Trump, the equivalent of filing formal charges, a trial by the Republican-led Senate would all but certainly acquit him, keeping him in office.

Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters earlier that six House committees are investigating Trump.

"That is the serious path we're on," she said.

Democrats are also eagerly awaiting next week's scheduled public testimony to two House committees by special counsel Robert Mueller.

With Democrats preparing to defend their House majority in next year's elections, Green's measure put incumbents in closely divided districts in a difficult spot. Democrats owe their House majority to 39 challengers who won in 2018 in what had been GOP-held districts, places where moderate voters largely predominate.

"It's not ideal for a lot of people to have to take that vote right now," one of them, Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., said Wednesday of impeachment. She said "if and when" the House votes on impeaching Trump, it should happen when "we can make sure our constituents understand and can get behind" the move.

Democrats are also concerned that Republicans could use a failed impeachment vote to try taking the steam out of the continuing probes into Trump's performance in office by arguing that the House had demonstrated it had no appetite for removing him from office.

"This is all they've ever wanted to do from the day of the election" in 2016, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a brief interview.

Green's measure cites Trump's recent "racist" comments imploring Democratic congresswomen of color to go back to their native countries. The House voted Tuesday largely along party lines to condemn those statements . His targets were Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

All are American and all but Omar were born in the U.S. They've also been among the party's most outspoken advocates of impeachment.

Trump is "unfit to be President, unfit to represent the American values of decency and morality, respectability and civility, honesty and propriety, reputability and integrity, is unfit to defend the ideals that have made America great, unfit to defend liberty and justice for all," Green's resolution said.

Green's resolution does not mention Mueller's investigation into whether Trump's 2016 campaign conspired with Russia to influence that year's congressional election or whether the president obstructed Mueller's probe.

Those threads have been why some Democrats have backed impeachment. More than 80 of the 235 House Democrats have said an impeachment inquiry is merited.

Mueller's 448-page report detailed several episodes in which Trump tried to influence his investigation. Mueller said he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction and indicated in a May news conference that it was up to Congress to decide what to do.

Those who support an impeachment inquiry have argued that it would accelerate the process and bolster their arguments in court. Some Democrats are frustrated with the slow pace of their party's investigations of the president. Democrats have had little success so far in their attempts to investigate beyond what Mueller detailed, as the White House has blocked several witnesses from answering questions.

Green's measure was the third resolution to impeach Trump he has brought to the House floor since 2017. The eight-term veteran has spurned leadership entreaties to hold off in the past.

But while his first two efforts were symbolic because they came with Republicans controlling the House, this time Democrats run the chamber. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday President Donald Trump was moving closer to impeachment with his effort to thwart congressional subpoenas and obstruct lawmakers’ efforts to oversee his administration.

“Every single day the president is making the case” and “he’s becoming self-impeachable,” Pelosi said in an interview with the Washington Post, when asked about the possibility of the Republican president being impeached by the House.

Trump on Wednesday asserted executive privilege over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and its underlying investigative materials, escalating the battle with the Democrats on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

The move came shortly before the House Judiciary Committee was to vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena to hand over the full unredacted report.

The Judiciary Committee is one of number of committees in the Democratic-controlled House that are investigating Trump and his administration on multiple fronts, including White House security clearances and Trump’s personal and business dealings.

The House and Senate still are investigating Russian election meddling and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Mueller’s report cited extensive contacts between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Moscow but did not find a conspiracy between Moscow and the campaign. It also described actions that Trump took to try to impede the investigation and congressional Democrats have vowed to continue their own probe into the issue.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and vowed to fight all congressional subpoenas.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr faces a contempt citation by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday for failing to comply with lawmakers’ requests, while former White House lawyer Don McGahn faces a similar threat.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also has defied Congress, this week not acting on the House Ways and Means Committee’s request for Trump’s tax returns.

Republicans, who control the U.S. Senate, have dismissed House Democrats’ investigations as political posturing ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats are divided over how far to take their investigations with some calling for impeachment proceedings and others backing continued panel investigations.

“The president ... wants to goad us unto impeachment,” Pelosi told the Post. Such proceedings would also be “divisive” for the country, she said. </s> WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - Donald Trump lashed out on Sunday (May 19) at the first Republican congressman to call the US president's behaviour impeachable, while Democrats warned Trump's stonewalling of congressional probes is strengthening the case for an impeachment inquiry.

Trump called Republican Representative Justin Amash "a total lightweight" and "a loser" on Twitter, a day after the Michigan conservative said the Mueller report showed that the Republican president "engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment."

Amash's criticism made calls in the US Congress for Trump's impeachment bipartisan, though just barely, with most Republicans still standing by the president at a time of economic growth, turbulent markets and global trade tensions.

Saying most lawmakers have not read it, Amash cited Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report on Russian meddling in Trump's favour in the 2016 US election.

On Twitter on Saturday, Amash said the report showed Trump had obstructed justice and added, "President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct."

A frequent Trump critic, Amash is a part of the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative faction. He has also signaled he would consider running as a libertarian against Trump in 2020.

Counter-punching in his usual style, Trump tweeted: "Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy ... Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!" Trump will have a chance to make his case to supporters on Monday at a rally planned for Montoursville, Pa.

Amash's comments echoed the conclusions of many Democrats.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that Trump was moving closer to impeachment with his stonewalling of numerous congressional investigations of him and his presidency.

Still, Democrats are divided about impeachment. With 2020 election campaigns heating up, Pelosi said impeachment proceedings would be "divisive" for the country.

No US president has ever been removed from office as a direct result of the US Constitution's impeachment process.

The House of Representatives has impeached two presidents. Both were acquitted by the Senate.

The Mueller report, now at the center of an escalating oversight battle between Trump and House Democrats, detailed extensive contacts between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, but did not find that there was a conspiracy with Moscow. The report also described actions Trump took to try to impede Mueller's investigation, but made no formal finding on the question of obstruction, leaving the matter to Congress.

Amash also said on Twitter that Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, "deliberately misrepresented" Mueller's report when he oversaw the roll-out of a redacted version.

There were no signs on Sunday of other Republicans following Amash's lead. Another Trump critic, Republican Senator Mitt Romney, said on Sunday that Amash made "a courageous statement,"yet also told CNN's "State of the Union" program that he did not believe Mueller's findings supported impeachment.

But Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment, called Amash's statement "a watershed moment." "Justin Amash coming on board means there is now bipartisan support for really understanding the seriousness of what is in the Mueller report," she said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, one of six committee chairs leading probes of Trump, said the case for impeachment is being strengthened by White House stonewalling.

"If the only way that we can do our oversight is through an impeachment proceeding, then maybe we have to go down that road," Schiff told CBS' "Face the Nation" program.

"But I think it'll be important to show the American people, this was a decision made reluctantly, this was a decision forced upon us, rather than something we were eager to embrace" Schiff said. </s> The Latest: House derails move to impeach Trump for insults

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on a House Democrat's effort to impeachment President Donald Trump (all times local):

The House has derailed an effort by a maverick Democrat to impeach President Donald Trump because of his racial insults against four of the party's congresswomen of color.

Wednesday's vote to kill the proposal by Texas congressman Al Green was 332-95. Democrats opposed the effort by a 3-to-2 margin, while all Republicans voted to kill it.

Green's resolution did not mention special prosecutor Robert Mueller's unanswered questions about whether Trump obstructed his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

It was the third time the Houston lawmaker has forced the House to vote on removing Trump, but the first since Democrats took control of the chamber this year.

Many liberal Democrats have favored impeaching Trump. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has preferred a go-slow approach to develop a stronger case that could be more acceptable to the public.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says her chamber will derail a maverick Democrat's drive to impeach President Donald Trump.

Texas Rep. Al Green's resolution cites Trump's "racist" words this week urging Democratic congresswomen of color to go back to their native countries. And he says Trump is unfit to be president.

Pelosi and other party leaders worry that the vote needlessly forces vulnerable swing-district lawmakers to cast a perilous and divisive vote. Even if the House voted to impeach Trump now, the Republican-run Senate would be certain to acquit him.

Pelosi tells reporters about Green's resolution, "We'll get rid of all this right now."

Green's measure also risks widening the rift between liberal Democrats itching to oust Trump and Pelosi and others who want to first build stronger public support. </s> Republican Representative Justin Amash is stepping down from his position with the House Freedom Caucus amid the fallout after he called for President Donald Trump's impeachment.

Amash made the announcement of his voluntary departure on Monday at a Freedom Caucus board meeting, Fox News reported.

Amash said during his remarks that he didn't want to be a 'further distraction' for the influential conservative caucus.

A few weeks ago, the Michigan lawmaker became the only Republican in Congress to openly argue that Trump had committed impeachable offenses. He made the accusations in a lengthy Twitter thread.

'Some of the president's actions were inherently corrupt. Other actions were corrupt—and therefore impeachable—because the president took them to serve his own interests,' Amash posted on May 23.

Jim Jordan, a Republican representative from Ohio, and a member of the Freedom Caucus, told Fox on Monday that Amash mutually came to the decision to step aside with the caucus's chairman, Mark Meadows.

Amash had come under fire from those within his party, and especially the president, after he sided with Democrats who have increased calls for Trump's impeachment after the publication of the Russia report.

'Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy,' Trump posted to Twitter in response to Amash's call for impeachment.

'Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!' he continued.

Although more than 50 Democrats in Congress have called for Trump's impeachment, no Republicans – until Amash – had agreed.

Calls for impeachment proceedings increased after Mueller delivered remarks at the Department of Justice last month and said his report is his testimony. He also said he did not charge Trump because it is longstanding DOJ protocol to not charge a sitting president with a federal crime.

Democrats claimed this was basically Mueller telling them it was up to Congress to bring charges against the president and impeach him.

A redacted version of Mueller's 448-page was made public in April, a few weeks after Attorney General Bill Barr classified the report in a four-page memo that claimed it found Trump had committed no crimes.

The report did not find evidence that Trump had conspired with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 elections, but did outline a handful of 'episodes' that were potential grounds for obstruction.

Democrats say this is enough to impeach Trump, and Amash accused Barr of intentionally misrepresenting Mueller's report.

About a week after taking a stance on impeachment, Amash held a town hall with constituents in Michigan.

Amash fielded mixed reviews from about 800 audience members at the event in Grand Rapids.

For more than two hours that evening, Amash took questions from audience members at the DeVos Center for Arts and Worship at Grand Rapids Christian High School.

The majority of attendees peppered the congressman about Mueller's Russia report and the congressman's analysis of the document.

Although many of the audience members applauded the congressman with standing ovations on his courage in calling for Trump's impeachment, others accused him of switching political parties.

'How can you become a Democrat when we voted you in as a Republican?' 57-year-old Diane Luke, who was wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat, questioned, adding she was disappointed in Amash.
The U.S. House of Representatives votes 332–95 to table an impeachment-related measure against U.S. President Donald Trump.