Trump is impeached for historic second time over Capitol breach
10 Republicans join Democrats to charge President with incitement of insurrection
DONALD Trump has become the first president in US history to be impeached twice.
The majority vote in t he US House of Representatives came just a week after he encouraged loyalists to “fight like hell” against election results in a speech that was followed by a mob of his supporters storming the US Capitol.
The House vote on an article of impeachment for “incitement of insurrection” was still under way late last night.
During debate before the vote, House speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Republicans and Democrats to “search their souls”.
Ms Pelosi called Mr Trump a “clear and present danger to the nation we all love”.
Actual removal seems unlikely before the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
A spokesman for Senate majority leader Mitch Mcconnell said the Republican leader would not agree to bring the chamber back immediately, all but ensuring a Senate trial could not begin at least until January 19.
But Mr Mcconnell did not rule out voting to convict Mr Trump in the event of a trial. In a note to his fellow Republican senators just before the House was to begin voting, he said he is undecided.
“While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” Mr Mcconnell wrote.
While Mr Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 brought no Republican votes in the House, 10 Republican leaders are breaking with the party to join Democrats this time, saying Mr Trump violated his oath to protect and defend US democracy.
However, most Republicans planned to vote “no” and representative Tom Mcclintock of California said during the debate that impeaching Mr Trump a week before he leaves office is a “petty, vindictive and gratuitous act”.
As for threats of more trouble from intruders, security was exceptionally tight at the Capitol with shocking images of massed National Guard troops, secure perimeters around the complex and metal detector screenings required for representatives entering the House chamber.
Though Mr Mcconnell is declining to hasten an impeachment trial, a Republican strategist said he believes Mr Trump committed impeachable offences and considers the Democrats’ impeachment drive an opportunity to reduce the divisive, chaotic president’s hold on his party.
Mr Mcconnell called major Republican donors last weekend to gauge their thinking about Mr Trump and was told that the president had clearly crossed a line. Mr Mcconnell told them he was finished with Mr Trump, said the strategist.
The stunning collapse of Mr Trump’s final days in office, along with warnings of more violence ahead, leaves the nation at an uneasy and unfamiliar juncture before Mr Biden takes office.
Mr Trump f aces a si ngle charge of “incitement of insurrection”.
The four-page impeachment resolution relies on Mr Trump’s own incendiary rhetoric and the falsehoods he spread about Mr Biden’s election victory, including at a White House rally on the day of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, in making its case for “high crimes and misdemeanours” as demanded in the Constitution.
Mr Trump took no responsibility for the riot, suggesting it was the drive to oust him rather than his actions around the bloody riot that was dividing the country.
‘I’ve not made a final decision on how I’ll vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate’