Donald Trump has become the third president in US history to be impeached.

The US House of Representatives has passed two articles of impeachment against Mr Trump.

He is accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress amid claims he tried to pressure Ukraine into opening an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden.

As the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives was voting, Mr Trump was addressing a rally in Michigan.

He condemned the Democratic-led impeachment vote against him, telling the rally: "This lawless, partisan impeachment is a political suicide march for the Democrat Party." 

He told the crowd that it did not feel like he was being impeached because the country was doing so well and he had done nothing wrong.

There will now be a trial in the Republican-controlled senate, where Mr Trump is expected to be cleared.

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Neither of the two previous presidents impeached since 1789, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998, was convicted in the Senate.

In the vote on the first of two articles of impeachment, every single one of the chamber's Republicans voted against the impeachment charge, while all but two Democrats voted for it - 230 to 197.

The US House of Representatives voted 229-198 to impeach President Trump for obstruction of Congress.

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 politician who headed the impeachment inquiry, ahead of the vote.

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

After a marathon of ten hours of debate, politicians were to vote quickly on the second article of impeachment facing Mr Trump - for obstructing the congressional probe into his Ukraine dealings by blocking the testimony of subpoenaed White House aides.

Despite testimony from 17 officials that Mr 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 yesterday as an "assault on America."

Mr Trump spent the first part of the day holed up at the White House, sending out tweets reflecting his frustration, anger and predictions of revenge in the 2020 election.

But as the vote took place, the 73-year-old was on friendlier territory.

In an extraordinary split screen moment, while the House was casting votes to impeach him, thousands of Mr Trump's most fervent supporters were cheering him at the rally in Michigan where he railed against a "radical left" he said was "consumed with hatred."

Democrats are "trying to nullify the ballots of tens of millions of patriotic Americans," he charged.

"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."

"Four more years, four more years," the crowd chanted back.

Putin says Trump impeachment based on 'made-up grounds'

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the impeachment was based on "made-up" grounds, adding he did not believe it marked the end of the US president.

"It still needs to go through the Senate, where the Republicans have a majority," Mr Putin said.

"And it is hardly likely that they are going to push out of office a representative of their own party, on grounds that are absolutely made-up," he added.

Additional reporting AFP