Impeached President Trump says Democrats consumed with hatred'

Battle Creek: US President Donald Trump railed against a Democratic Party “consumed with hatred” after he was impeached Wednesday for abuse of power and obstructing Congress.

"While we're creating jobs and fighting for Michigan, the radical Left in Congress is consumed with envy and hatred and rage, you see what's going on," the Republican leader seethed at campaign rally in the state. "These people are crazy."

Trump said the Democratic Party, which controls the House of Representatives where the votes took place, was "trying to nullify the ballots of tens of millions of patriotic Americans."

Democrats said they had "no choice" but to formally charge the Republican president, whose impeachment along stark party lines places an indelible stain on his record while driving a spike ever deeper into the US political divide. "What is at risk here is the very idea of America," said Adam Schiff, the lawmaker who headed the impeachment inquiry, ahead of the vote.

Trump will now stand trial in the Senate, where his Republicans hold a solid majority and are expected to exonerate him.

The House vote came four months after a whistleblower blew open the scandal of Trump pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate his potential White House challenger in 2020, the veteran Democrat Joe Biden.

Despite testimony from 17 officials that Trump leveraged his office for domestic politic gain, the president maintained his innocence throughout the impeachment inquiry — furiously denouncing it as a "witch hunt," an "attempted coup" and on Wednesday as an "assault on America."