Trump impeachment: What you need to know ahead of the vote
US President Donald Trump is facing a likely impeachment vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
Only two US presidents have been impeached — Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 — although both survived a trial in the Senate that would have removed them from office.
Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.
Here's what you need to know ahead of the historic House vote:
The whistleblower
In an August 12 complaint, an unknown whistleblower in the intelligence community said Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election.”
The whistleblower's complaint stemmed from a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The phone call
During the call, Trump asked Zelensky to “look into” his potential 2020 Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who served on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
Trump is accused of withholding $391 million in military aid for Ukraine and a White House meeting for Zelensky in exchange for a probe of the Bidens.
Trump insists he did nothing wrong but Democrats said the demand for an investigation of the Bidens constituted an abuse of power.
The White House released the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call on September 25 following newspaper reports about the whistleblower complaint.