WASHINGTON, DC — As the country nears the end of a harrowing week, House Democrats on Friday will gather to discuss a quick impeachment of President Donald Trump if his Cabinet doesn’t act to remove him first.
The caucus meeting, scheduled at noon, is the first since insurrectionists loyal to Trump stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday, a riot that temporarily suspended Electoral College proceedings to confirm Joe Biden as the nation’s 46th president and also involved the deaths of five people.
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Trump’s Cabinet and Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which sets out the process for removing a president from office if deemed unfit to serve.
If that doesn’t happen, the California Democrat said, Congress may take steps to impeach Trump for a second time. He was impeached by the House in December 2019 but was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020.Subscribe
If that happens, a vote could come as early as mid-week next week, according to reports.
Pelosi was joined by Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat in line to become the next Senate majority leader, in seeking Trump’s removal for a “seditious act” — that is, the act of inciting revolt or violence against a lawful authority with the goal of destroying or overthrowing it.
In a tweet calling for Trump to be removed from the presidency through either the 25th Amendment or a second impeachment, Schumer called the Capitol siege “an insurrection against the United States, incited by President Trump,” who he said “must not hold office one day longer.”
The 25th Amendment has existed for about 50 years but has never been invoked. Most of those calling for its use two weeks before Trump’s term ends are Democrats, with some notable exceptions.
One leading Republican critic of Trump, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, said he will “definitely consider” impeachment.
“The president has disregarded his oath of office,” Sasse said Friday on “CBS This Morning.” He said what Trump did was “wicked’ inciting the mob to the Capitol.
If the House impeaches, “I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move,” Sasse said.
Fresh off a 12-hour timeout on Twitter, a conciliatory Trump released a recorded video in which he claimed outrage over the “heinous attack” on the Capitol but took no responsibility for it. “Now tempers must be cooled and calm restored,” he said, claiming his only goal in challenging the election results has been to ensure “the integrity of the vote.”
He called for healing and reconciliation but also said “our incredible journey is just beginning.”
Meanwhile, President-elect Biden did not address efforts to remove Trump from office in a televised news conference Thursday, but he denounced the rioters as “domestic terrorists” and blamed the outgoing president for the violence that roiled in the nation’s capital and beyond.
Biden’s remarks came as he introduced Merrick Garland as his attorney general pick. The president-elect made a point of assuring Americans he will not bend his Justice Department to his will but will instead allow it to function independently.
“In the past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of law clear in everything he has done,” Biden said. “He unleashed an all-out assault on the institutions of our democracy from the outset. And yesterday was the culmination of that unrelenting attack.”
The calls for Trump’s removal came as the nation works to move forward from what has been called one of the darkest days in American history. One woman was shot and killed and four others died as a mob overtook the Capitol, where a joint session of Congress was tending to the typically routine task of certifying the 2020 Electoral College votes.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were certified just before 4 a.m. Thursday by a Congress determined to show the world that U.S. democracy was still functioning.
Biden and Harris will be inaugurated Jan. 20.
Hours after Trump’s Thursday remarks, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office said they plan to open a federal murder investigation into the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died Thursday as a result of injuries he sustained during the riot, police said.
According to a CNN report, Sicknick was injured while “physically engaging with protesters.” As he returned to his division office, he collapsed and was taken to a local hospital before his death.
Trump, who was widely condemned by members of his own party for encouraging his supporters to march to the Capitol, said in a Twitter statement Wednesday night that he was committed to a peaceful transition of power, but he took no responsibility for Wednesday’s melee.
The statement was sent by a spokesman on Twitter, a platform he was temporarily locked out of for making unfounded claims. He again falsely claimed the facts bear out his rejection of the election results, and he vowed to “continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted.”
Trump had been banned from Twitter for 12 hours, and social media platforms took down a Wednesday video in which he said “we love you” to the rioters who stormed the Capitol building, broke windows, vandalized property in lawmakers’ offices and entered the Senate Chamber.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump told thousands of supporters gathered on the National Mall that he would never concede the election and invited the teeming crowd to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.
“We’re going to try and give our Republicans — the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help — we’re to try and give them kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country,” he said
The rioters’ actions Wednesday forced members of Congress to recess and be taken to secure locations for hours.
They reconvened later at night after the Capitol had been secured. Ahead of the session, a coalition of 12 Republican senators led by Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri and more than 100 House Republicans had pledged to object to counting the electoral votes in key 2020 presidential election battleground states, citing the long-disproven claims about election fraud that comprised dozens of dismissed lawsuits in federal and state court.
But many Republicans reversed course after the mob stormed the Capitol.
In a fiery speech on the House floor following the objections, Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb said the Republicans had “inspired” the violent Capitol attack with lies.
“These objections don’t deserve an ounce of respect,” Lamb said. “Not an ounce. A woman died out there tonight, and you’re making these objections. Let’s be clear about what happened in this chamber today: invaders came in for the first time since the War of 1812. They desecrated these chambers and practically every inch of ground where we work.”
As the joint session reconvened, Schumer called Wednesday one of the darkest days in American history. Borrowing the famous quote from President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Dec. 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, Schumer said Jan. 6, 2021, would also become a date that will “live in infamy.”
Many of Trump’s staunchest supporters over the past four years are now speaking against his involvement in the Capitol chaos.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who recently resigned over a dispute with Trump regarding the validity of the election, told the Associated Press on Thursday that his former boss’s conduct was a “betrayal of his office and supporters.”
In addition to two months of pushing baseless claims of voter fraud, Trump led a rally in the capital before Congress began counting the electoral votes. He told his supporters that he would be with them in a march to the Capitol Building. He was not.
“Orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable,” Barr said.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime Trump ally, said “enough is enough” when addressing the Senate floor after Wednesday’s mayhem.
“Trump and I, we had a hell of a journey,” Graham said, according to The Hill and others. “I hate it being this way. Oh my god, I hate it … but today all I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. I tried to be helpful.”
Other Republican lawmakers are taking it a step further.
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Thursday morning became the first GOP member to call for the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which would remove Trump from office for his inability to serve.
In a video posted on Twitter, Kinzinger said “it’s with a heavy heart I am calling for the sake of our Democracy that the 25th Amendment be invoked.”
“The president caused this,” Kinzinger said. “The president is unfit, and the president is unwell.”
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania, did not mince words either.
“The President of the United States has been lying to his supporters with false information and false expectations,” Fitzpatrick said. “He lit the flame of incitement and owns responsibility for this.”
Police said 69 people were arrested for riot-related offenses. The FBI is also seeking to identify more people involved in the riot.
“The violence and destruction of property at the U.S. Capitol building yesterday showed a blatant and appalling disregard for our institutions of government and the orderly administration of the democratic process,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a Thursday statement. “Make no mistake: With our partners, we will hold accountable those who participated in yesterday’s siege of the Capitol.”
One of the five dead, Ashli Babbitt of California, was shot in the neck inside the Capitol building.
Police on Thursday identified the others who died on Capitol grounds Wednesday due to what it said were medical emergencies: Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia; Kevin Greeson, 55, of Athens, Alabama; and Benjamin Phillips, 50, of Ringtown, Pennsylvania.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser compared the differences in the law enforcement response to Wednesday’s Capitol riot and the protests that unfolded last summer in the wake of the police-related death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“I do think it bears mentioning that there is some difference in the federal response at Lafayette Square and at the United States Capitol,” Bowser said, during a Wednesday night news conference. “I think that we saw different types of vehicles used. We saw a different posture used in some cases. We did not see, for example, the deployment of those military personnel on the Capitol grounds.”
Protests surrounding Floyd’s death resulted in 427 arrests in the nation’s capital over a four-day span, including 289 made on June 1 alone.
Biden echoed Bowser’s comments in his afternoon briefing.
“Black Lives Matter protesters would have been treated differently,” he said.
PEABODY, PATCH
