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The House is set to launch impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump as early as this week if Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet refuse to remove him from office for his role in inciting a mob that carried out a deadly attack against the seat of the US government.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered the ultimatum in a letter to her colleagues on Sunday evening, describing the speaker as an urgent threat to the nation.
On Monday, the House would move forward with a non-binding resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and strip Trump of his presidential authority. If the measure does not receive unanimous support, as expected, the House will vote on the resolution on Tuesday. Pence, she said, would have “24 hours” to respond.
Next, Pelosi said the House “will proceed with the presentation of an impeachment law to the prosecution.” Although she did not specify an exact timeline, Major Democrats have suggested the House could begin business as early as midweek.
“In protecting our Constitution and our democracy, we will act urgently, as this president poses an imminent threat to both,” she wrote. “As the days go by, the horror of this president’s continued assault on our democracy intensifies, as does the immediate need to act.”
Pelosi noted the urgency was needed as Trump was due to step down on January 20.
She explained that the resolution called on Pence “to summon and mobilize the cabinet to activate the 25th Amendment to declare the president unable to perform the functions of his office.”
According to the procedure, the vice-president “would immediately exercise the powers of the interim president,” she wrote.
Pelosi told 60 Minutes on Sunday that Trump was “a deranged, deranged and dangerous president of the United States“, Adding that he did something” so serious that there should be a lawsuit against him “.
Pence is not expected to take the lead in forcing Trump out, although discussions have been circulating over the 25th amendment option for days in Washington.
Previously, it was speculated that House Democrats might try to introduce articles of impeachment as early as Monday.
One touted strategy was to quickly condemn the president’s actions but delay a Senate impeachment trial for 100 days. This would allow President-elect Joe Biden to focus on other priorities from his inauguration on January 20.
Jim Clyburn, the third-largest House Democrat and one of Biden’s main allies, introduced the ideas on Sunday as the country attacked the Capitol seat by Trump loyalists trying to overturn election results .
“Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda going,” Clyburn said.
The push from House Democrats came after the office of Colorado Democratic Representative Jason Crow released reading of a call in which Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy “indicated that [the Department of Defense] is aware of new potential threats posed by potential terrorists in the days leading up to and including the day of the inauguration ”.
According to the reading, McCarthy said the Pentagon was “working with local and federal law enforcement to coordinate security preparations” on January 20.
Crow, a former US Army ranger, said he had “raised serious concerns about reports that active duty and reserve military personnel were involved in the insurgency” and demanded that “the troops deployed for the inauguration… do not sympathize with the national terrorists ”. The reading indicated that McCarthy agreed and said he was ready to testify publicly in the coming days.
Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania joined his colleague Lisa Murkowski from Alaska on Sunday in calling on Trump to “resign and leave as soon as possible.”
“I think the president disqualified himself never, certainly, to return to office,” Toomey said. “I don’t think he’s eligible in any way.”
Murkowski, who has long expressed his exasperation at Trump’s conduct in office, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Trump “just had to get out.” A third Republican, Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, didn’t go that far, but on Sunday he warned Trump to be “very careful” in his last days in office.
Corporate America began to link its reaction to the Capitol Riots by linking them to campaign contributions.
Citigroup has said it will suspend all federal political donations for the first three months of the year. Citi’s head of global government affairs Candi Wolff said in a Friday memo to employees: “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
House leaders, furious at the insurgency, appear determined to act against Trump despite the short delay.
Another idea considered was to hold a separate vote that would prevent Trump from returning to office. This might only require a simple majority vote of 51 senators, unlike impeachment, in which two-thirds of the Senate’s 100 members must support a conviction.
The Senate was to be evenly split 50-50, but under Democratic control once Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the two Democrats who won the second round of the Senate in Georgia last week are sworn in. Harris would be the deciding Senate vote.
The FBI and other agencies continue to examine the circumstances of the insurgency, including allegations that Pentagon officials loyal to Trump blocked the deployment of National Guard troops for three hours after officials called for ugly.
“We couldn’t cross the border to get to Washington without the OK and it took a while [coming]Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan told CNN.
“Finally, I got a call from the secretary of the army, asking if we could get into town, but we had already mobilized, we already had our police, we already had our guard mobilized, and we were just waiting. this call. “
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