Representatives in the House said they would move to impeach the president on Wednesday, after formally calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office Tuesday. The sole article of impeachment accuses the president of “willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States,” after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week.
After mulling over it for a few days last week, House Democrats formally introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump on Monday. The article accuses the president of “willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States,” by giving an inflammatory speech at the Washington Monument while Congress was certifying electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden, ultimately leading to the insurrection and riot at the Capitol Building.
The article has the backing of virtually the entire House Democratic Caucus, with even a handful of Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the chair of the House Republican Conference, and Reps. John Katko, R-N.Y., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., who are expected to vote yes on impeaching the president. Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, offered a scathing rebuke of the president, saying there has “never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States.”
This announcement could incite even more House Republicans to vote to impeach the president.
With such strong backing from the Democrats and more and more Republicans considering to break the party line, the article of impeachment is expected to pass.
This comes as American democracy is seeing unprecedented attacks not seen since the Civil War from Trump and his allies in government. It began with the assault on mail-in voting, to refusing to concede election defeat, citing “election fraud,” and now an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a longstanding symbol of American democracy and freedom, hailed all around the world. Never in American history has a sitting president of the United States been so adamant to cling to power that he would go as far as to dismantle the system of checks and balances the country has spent so long building.
And now, for the first time in American history, a president will be impeached for the second time. This comes just a year after the House last impeached Donald Trump, in December 2019, for allegedly soliciting Ukrainian authorities to interfere in the 2020 election.
This time, even Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the House Minority Leader and a staunch Trump ally, said even though he does not support impeaching the president, he will not formally lobby other Republicans to vote against it. The same goes for the No. 2 House Republican: Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., will not lobby for other Republicans to vote no either.
And so far, many Senate Republicans, notably Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate Majority Leader, are not opposed to impeachment. Media has reported that McConnell, the once-steadfast Trump ally, is actually supportive of impeachment, believing it to be the only way to repair a fractured GOP.
In the last impeachment, no House Republicans, and only one Senate Republican—Mitt Romney of Utah—voted to impeach (in the House) or convict (in the Senate) the president. With Trump not showing any remorse or regret, though, the tide is starting to turn this time. More and more Republicans are choosing to ditch Trump and vote for democracy instead.
Also, this impeachment is not going to be the monthslong affair previous impeachments have been. There will be no lengthy trial or proceedings. Instead, the vote today will be swift, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., could send the articles to the Senate as fast as Thursday, but whether or not she would send the articles so quickly is unclear. The Senate is not expected to be in session until Jan. 20, but Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate Minority Leader, has called for emergency powers to be used to call the Senate back into session. Doing so would require McConnell to agree, who has not commented on the issue.
In the Senate, two-thirds of all senators present would have to vote to convict the president for him to be removed from office (or barred from ever running again and losing all benefits for life). Assuming the vote takes place after Jan. 20, when Democrats will gain control of the Senate following Vice President Kamala Harris’s inauguration, 67 senators, including 17 Republicans, would need to vote to convict.
Americans are generally supportive of impeaching the president this time around, too. A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that some 57 percent of Americans would like to see the president impeached, convicted, and removed from office. The president’s approval rating has been sharply on the decline lately, too. A Politico/Morning Consult poll shows that 63 percent of voters disapprove of Donald Trump’s performance, highly unusual for a president about to leave office.
Read the full impeachment resolution below.
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