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The U.S. Capitol is seen at dawn in Washington Jan. 9, 2021. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)
Jan. 11, 2021
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON -- House Democrats introduced a single article of impeachment, charging President Donald Trump with "incitement of insurrection" for his role in a riot at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6.
The introduction Jan. 11 sets the stage for a vote from the House of Representatives vote in the coming days. If passed, Trump would be the first president to be impeached twice.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said a vote would be taken if Vice President Mike Pence does not seek to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment by Jan. 13.
The introduction occurred during a brief pro-forma session. Pelosi and other Democrats have said the move was necessary to hold Trump accountable for his actions and to prevent the possibility of further damage to democracy.
"Sadly, the person who’s running the executive branch is a deranged, unhinged, dangerous president of the United States," Pelosi said in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Jan. 10. She added that "he has done something so serious that there should be prosecution against him."
During the morning session, Democrats also attempted to pass by unanimous consent a second resolution urging Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to relieve Trump of his duties until his term ends Jan. 20. However, Rep. Alex Mooney, R-West Virginia, objected to the measure, ending such a step.
The resolution to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment said the attack on the Capitol by pro-Trump demonstrators was the work of an “insurrectionary mob.” The rioters threatened the safety and lives of Pence, Pelosi and the president pro tempore of the Senate, the first three individuals in the line of succession to the presidency. The rioters were recorded chanting ‘‘Hang Mike Pence’’ and ‘‘Where’s Nancy’’ when President Donald J. Trump tweeted to his supporters that ‘‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country’’ after the Capitol had been overrun and the vice president was in hiding, the resolution states.
The mob attacked police, terrorized members, their families and staff, occupied the Senate chamber and the speaker’s office, vandalized and pilfered government property and interfered with the counting of electoral votes in the joint session of Congress. The disruption was “a dangerous and destabilizing impairment of the peaceful transfer of power that these insurrectionary riots were explicitly designed to cause,” the resolution states.
Five people died in the attack, including Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, Ashli Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, Kevin Greeson and Benjamin Phillips. More than 50 police officers were seriously injured, including 15 officers who had to be hospitalized, by violent assaults, “and there could easily have been dozens or hundreds more wounded and killed.”
“These insurrectionary protests were widely advertised and broadly encouraged by President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly urged his millions of followers on Twitter and other social media outlets to come to Washington on January 6 to ‘Stop the Steal’ of the 2020 Presidential election and promised his activist followers that the protest on the Electoral College counting day would be ‘wild,’” the resolution says.
Democratic representatives David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Ted Lieu of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland introduced the impeachment article. As of late Jan. 10, more than 200 House members had signed on as co-sponsors.
It cited Trump's repeated false and unbacked claims that he won the November election. It also referenced his speech to supporters during a Jan. 6 rally near the White House after which participants marched to the Capitol. A large contingent breached security, disrupting the constitutionally directed action to affirm Joe Biden as president and causing members of Congress to go into lockdown.
The impeachment article also described Trump's Jan. 2 call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state urging the official to "find" enough votes for the president to win the state.
"In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government," the resolution says. "He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States."
Pelosi said in a letter to the Democratic caucus Jan. 10 that a vote on the impeachment resolution would be taken if Pence did not invoke the 25th Amendment, indicating a timeline for action in the House.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” Pelosi wrote. “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
A provision of the 25th Amendment allows the vice president to convene the Cabinet to determine the president's suitability to remain in office. A majority of the Cabinet would be needed to write to Congress stating that the president was unable to carry out the duties of the office. The vice president would then become acting president.
The sitting president can refute the assessment and return to power unless the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet again make another declaration to Congress. Representatives and senators then have 21 days to determine whether to remove the president. Two-thirds of members of both chambers must agree to the actual removal from office of a sitting president.
Catholic San Francisco contributed.