Donald Trump has insisted he has “done nothing wrong” and does not deserve to be impeached, and made the extraordinary suggestion that he appear on live TV to read the full transcript of his controversial phone call with the Ukrainian president in a “fireside chat”.

Trump impeachment inquiry: a timeline of key events so far Read more

On the evening of the historic day that the House of Representatives voted to formalize impeachment proceedings against him, Trump proclaimed his innocence in an Oval Office interview with the Washington Examiner.

Meanwhile, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who announced the launch of the impeachment inquiry in September, appeared on Stephen Colbert’s late-night TV show and said: “I pray for the United States of America.”

Pelosi said: “It’s very sad. We don’t want to impeach a president. We don’t want the reality that a president has done something that is in violation of the constitution.”

Q&A How do you impeach the US president? Show Hide Article 1 of the United States constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to initiate impeachment and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments of the president. A president can be impeached if they are judged to have committed "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" – although the US Constitution does not specify what “high crimes and misdemeanors” are.

The formal process starts with the House of Representatives passing articles of impeachment, the equivalent of congressional charges. According to arcane Senate rules, after the House notifies the Senate that impeachment managers have been selected, the secretary of the Senate, Julie Adams, tells the House that the Senate is ready to receive the articles. Then impeachment managers appear before the Senate to “exhibit” the articles, and the Senate confirms it will consider the case. The presiding officer of the Senate notifies the supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, of the impending trial. Roberts arrives in the Senate to administer an oath to members. The presiding officer will then administer this oath to senators: “I solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws, so help me God.” The Senate must vote on a resolution laying out ground rules for the trial including who the key players will be, how long they will get to present their cases and other matters. After the Senate is “organized”, the rules decree, “a writ of summons shall issue to the person impeached, reciting said articles, and notifying him to appear before the Senate upon a day and at a place to be fixed by the Senate”. A president has never appeared at his own impeachment trial. Trump will be represented by the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, and his personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, among others. After the oath, the trial proper will begin. Senators may not speak during the proceedings but may submit written questions. The question of witnesses and other matters would be decided on the fly by majority vote. A time limit for the proceedings will be established in the initial Senate vote. The senators will then deliberate on the case. In the past this has happened behind closed doors and out of public view. The senators vote separately on the two articles of impeachment – the first charging Trump with abuse of power, the second charging him with obstruction of Congress. A two-thirds majority of present senators – 67 ayes if everyone votes – on either article would be enough to convict Trump and remove him from office. But that would require about 20 Republicans defections and is unlikely. The more likely outcome is a Trump acquittal, at which point the process is concluded. Two presidents have previously been impeached, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Andrew Johnson in 1868, though neither was removed from office as a result. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before there was a formal vote to impeach him. Tom McCarthy in New York

But a defiant Trump defended himself from the allegation at the heart of the inquiry – that he pressured the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate Joe Biden and delayed vital military aid to Ukraine as a quid pro quo.

Trump has previously described the central phone call in which he asked Zelenskiy for “a favor” as a “perfect” call. In his latest interview, he modified that by saying it was “a good call”.

He said: “At some point, I’m going to sit down, perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and I will read the transcript of the call, because people have to hear it. When you read it, it’s a straight call.”

Trump also floated the idea of making T-shirts with the message “Read the transcript” as part of the White House strategy to defend him in the impeachment inquiry – which is likely to proceed in the next few months to a congressional trial in the Senate. He reiterated that the White House will not cooperate with the investigation, in terms of acceding to demands for documents and witnesses from the Democratic-dominated House or obeying subpoenas.

After a whistleblower from the US intelligence community made a formal complaint about the substance of the phone call, the White House issued a memo that revealed much of the phone dialogue – echoing the whistleblower’s details – but was not a full transcript.

Trump also sharply contrasted his situation with that of the Democratic president Bill Clinton in his second term, over an affair with a White House intern, and the fate of the Republican president Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 as he was facing the impeachment process and likely removal from office.

Play Video 5:26 Could Donald Trump actually be impeached? – video

“Everybody knows I did nothing wrong,” he said. “Bill Clinton did things wrong; Richard Nixon did things wrong. I won’t go back to [Andrew] Johnson because that was a little before my time,” he said. “But they did things wrong. I did nothing wrong.”

Nixon was at the head of a conspiracy and cover-up that centered on the break-in of the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate building in Washington in 1972 to steal dirt on his political opponents.

Johnson was impeached in 1868 on congressional charges relating to political corruption.

On Thursday, for only the third time in the history of the modern presidency, the US House of Representatives voted to formalize the impeachment proceedings.

In a largely party-line vote of 232-196, the House embarked on a path that seemed likely to lead to Donald Trump’s impeachment – if not necessarily his removal from office. Pelosi presided over the vote and marked it with a bang of her gavel.

Republicans held ranks to vote uniformly against the process, while two Democrats crossed party lines to join them. The House’s sole independent, former Republican Justin Amash of Michigan, voted to advance the resolution.

Pelosi bangs the gavel: House votes to endorse Trump impeachment inquiry Read more

The vote set rules for the public phase of the inquiry, laying out a plan for impeachment that could produce dramatic televised public hearings within two weeks and a vote on impeachment itself by the end of the year.

For weeks, congressional investigators have been interviewing witnesses – 15 and counting – behind closed doors about alleged misconduct by Trump, who stands accused of using the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 US election.

Witnesses have been called to appear behind closed doors next week, before a shift to open hearings and the drawing up of official articles of impeachment. A simple majority vote in favor in the House would then move the process to the Senate for a likely trial of the president.