House Democrats introduce an article of impeachment charging Trump with incitement of insurrection
- House Democrats on Monday formally introduced an article of impeachment charging President Donald Trump with incitement of insurrection.
- The House is expected to impeach the president later this week unless Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet remove Trump from office via the 25th Amendment.
- Last week, Trump incited a riot at the US Capitol that resulted in five deaths.
House Democrats on Monday introduced an article of impeachment charging President Donald Trump with incitement of insurrection.
The House is set to vote on impeaching the president later this week unless Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power.
During a pro forma session on Monday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer brought a resolution to the floor calling on Pence to invoke the amendment. He tried to get it passed by unanimous consent, but Republicans blocked the measure.
The resolution accused the president of "inciting violence against the government of the United States" and argued that he "threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government" by urging a mob of his loyalists to challenge Congress' ratification of the result of the presidential election.
The resolution is widely expected to pass on Tuesday when House Democrats bring it to the floor again and vote via roll call. At that point, Pence would have 24 hours to invoke the 25th Amendment or the House would vote on impeaching Trump.
Business Insider reported last week that the vice president was not inclined to take the drastic step, though a source later told CNN that he had not completely ruled it out.
"As our next step, we will move forward with bringing impeachment legislation to the Floor," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Monday. "The President's threat to America is urgent, and so too will be our action."
Politico reported that House Democrats had enough votes to impeach Trump later this week if he isn't removed from office.
Trump incited a riot at the Capitol last Wednesday as Congress counted electoral votes and prepared to finalize President-elect Joe Biden's victory. The failed insurrection resulted in five deaths, including a 42-year-old Capitol Police officer who died from injuries sustained as Trump supporters beat him with a fire extinguisher.
At a rally before Congress convened, Trump urged thousands of his supporters to march to the Capitol and stop Congress from cementing Biden's win.
"You'll never take back our country with weakness," he told the crowd. "You have to show strength, and you have to be strong."
On Monday, House members quoted another line from Trump's speech in the article of impeachment: "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
On Wednesday, shortly after Congress began debating Republican challenges to some states' electoral votes, rioters breached barricades surrounding the Capitol and overtook Capitol Police officers, some of whom were filmed stepping aside to let the mob swarm into the building and taking selfies with Trump's supporters.
The insurrectionists went on to ransack lawmakers' offices, stealing some records that the Justice Department said may have contained "national security equities." Some rioters in the pro-Trump mob appeared to be hunting down members of Congress and the vice president.
A crowd of insurrectionists chanted "where's Mike Pence," and a Reuters photojournalist said he overheard at least three rioters saying they wanted to hang the vice president "from a Capitol tree." Authorities said a Georgia man who was arrested on federal charges over the weekend had sent a text message about "putting a bullet" in Pelosi. And the police in Tennessee arrested Eric Munchel, identified as the person in a photo from the Senate floor who was carrying zip ties that are used to take hostages.
Additional footage and news reports have indicated that several members of the mob were active law-enforcement officers and ex-military members with tactical training. Another man who was seen with zip ties in the Senate, Larry Rendell Brock, is a US Air Force veteran.
The president has been quiet since the Capitol siege and his suspensions from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Parler, a far-right platform popular among violent extremists, was also taken offline on Sunday night, booted from Amazon Web Services' cloud hosting platform.
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