Trump, Impeached for Abuse of Power, Faces a Senate Trial

United in their opposition, Republicans accused the Democrats, who fought their way back from political oblivion in 2016 to win the House in 2018, of misusing the power voters had invested in them to harangue a president they never viewed as legitimate by manufacturing a case against him. Though they conceded few of them, they insisted the facts against Mr. Trump nonetheless fell woefully short of impeachment.

“When all is said and done, when the history of this impeachment is written, it will be said that my Washington Democrat friends couldn’t bring themselves to work with Donald Trump, so they consoled themselves instead by silencing the will of those who did, the American people,” said Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina.

Through the course of the inquiry, even as Republicans raged against the process and sought to offer benign explanations for Mr. Trump’s conduct, none disputed the central facts that served as its basis: that he asked Ukraine’s president to “do us a favor” and investigate Mr. Biden, a prospective rival in the 2020 campaign, and other Democrats.

Mr. Trump’s impeachment had the potential to change the trajectory of his presidency and redefine an already volatile political landscape. Democrats, including the most vulnerable moderates, embraced the articles of impeachment with the full knowledge that doing so could damage them politically, potentially even costing them control of the House. Republicans tethered themselves closely to Mr. Trump as they have since he took office, yoking their political brands and fortunes to his. The debate proceeded in historic terms in the well of the House, even as an odd sense of inevitability hung over Washington about Mr. Trump’s fate.

“Today, as speaker of the House, I solemnly and sadly open the debate on the impeachment of the president of the United States,” Ms. Pelosi, dressed in all black, said as debate opened on the articles around noon. “If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.”

In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, has already made clear he views the House’s case as “weak” and would prefer a speedy trial in January that does not call any additional fact witnesses. Doing so increases the likelihood that Congress will simply never hear from several senior government officials with knowledge of the Ukraine matter who avoided House testimony.