You can rest easy now, at least for a few weeks, as Congress has gone home for the holidays and President Donald Trump will soon start his own break.

Congress managed to pass a federal budget to fund the government through the current fiscal year, and the House of Representatives approved the new NAFTA, the so-called USMCA. And while it was doing this heavy lifting, it also, by the way, approved the impeachment articles against Trump, on two counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

It’s not clear when the House will pass these approved 2 articles of impeachment to the Senate, where there is little or no likelihood of approval. Because the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hasn’t sent the articles to the Senate, it’s not even clear legally if Trump has been impeached. The impeachment is an indictment, and as such must be passed to the court or jury, the Senate in this case, and it hasn’t been.

So the Senate wasn’t able to quickly act and dismiss the impeachment case, to Trump’s great frustration, and it now hangs, unresolved, over his holiday celebration. That’s probably how the Democrats want it.

The President views a Senate vote of not guilty as vindication, and appears irritated that he has not been able to go to campaign rallies and declare his innocence confirmed by a Senate vote. In the end there is no doubt that the Senate has nowhere near the 67 votes that would be required to remove President Trump from office.

The House, with its Democratic majority, was always going to be the toughest vote to get approval of the President’s priority to renegotiate NAFTA, but the approval assures that it will become law in the new year. The President should have no problem delivering a victory in the Republican controlled Senate.

Passage of the budget is simulative as it contains approximately $150 billion in new funding divided between defense and domestic programs. It temporarily—yet again— puts aside the controversial issues of the border wall as both sides agreed to another year of flat funding at $1.35 billion for new construction.

Figure: Top Trump Tweets

Impeachment, Budget Passed; Government Goes on Holiday
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