YOU’RE FIRED!
SEARING NEW PICTURES AND ANALYSIS After night that rocked America, Washington plots to tell Trump...
DONALD Trump last night faced coordinated attempts to force his removal from office after he whipped up thousands of his violent supporters to storm the US Capitol.
Outraged Democrats and even members of his own Cabinet discussed how he might be forced out.
This is despite the chaotic events coming less than two weeks before Mr Trump leaves the White House anyway when Joe Biden will be sworn in. Several of the current President’s closest allies resigned yesterday while others – clearly not reassured by his belated promise of an ‘orderly transition’ on January 20 – weighed up whether he needed to go before causing further damage to America’s tarnished international reputation.
Democrat Senate leader Chuck Schumer bluntly warned the Trump Cabinet that if it didn’t get rid of the President – by using the Constitution to install Vice President Mike Pence in his place – then Congress would do it instead.
There are two ways to remove a president from office: the 25th Amendment of the Constitution allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to force him out with immediate effect, while impeachment requires a vote by both chambers of Congress.
Either way, Vice President Mike Pence would take over until Mr Biden’s inauguration.
‘What happened at the US Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the President,’ said Mr Schumer, echoing the President-Elect’s description of the riot. ‘This President should not hold office one day longer.’ In an emotional speech yesterday in which he pounded his podium in anger, Mr Biden said that ‘ no President is a king’ and called Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol ‘ one of the darkest days in the history of our nation’.
He added: ‘I wish we could say we couldn’t see it coming but that isn’t true: we could see it coming.
‘For the past four years we’ve had a president who made his contempt for our democracy, our constitution, clear in everything he has done.’
Mr Schumer’s call for Mr Trump to go immediately was supported by some 100 Democrat members of Congress, including House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Describing him as ‘ deadly to our democracy’, she called Mr Trump ‘a very dangerous person who should not continue in office’.
Accusing him of instigating a ‘seditious act’ and an ‘unspeakable assault on our nation’, she said he had to be ‘contained’ for the remaining 13 days of his presidency.
Representative Adam Kinzinger became the first Republican to openly agree with Democrats, saying Mr Trump had become ‘ unmoored from reality’ and that the US needed to have a ‘sane captain on the ship’.
Government insiders said some members of the Trump cabinet had preliminary discussions yesterday with his allies about invoking Section Four of the 25th Amendment.
Meanwhile Democrat Representatives were last night drawing up fresh articles of impeachment against the President. Although Congress has little time to impeach the President before he steps down anyway, the House could try to rush it through to the Senate where various Republicans might help pass it.
Mr Trump was yesterday said to be ‘ mentally unreachable’ while cocooned ‘in a state of denial’ in the White House, according to reports in the US. There were reports last night that his final act in office will be to pre-emptively ‘pardon’ himself so he can avoid any future prosecution for crimes committed in office.
Such a presidential pardon has never been issued before, so its validity would have to be tested in the courts, according to the New York Times.
Earlier in the day, while banned from his favoured mode of communication – Twitter – he put out a statement via his social media director promising ‘ an orderly transition of power on January 20’.
‘He’s unmoored from reality’
WHIPPED up by a belligerent toppled leader, a frenzied and violent mob storms a national parliament. As terrified politicians cower, shots ring out. In the carnage, four rioters lie dead.
One might be pardoned for thinking such ugly scenes could only occur in some malfunctioning banana republic. In fact, this shocking anarchy happened at the hallowed heart of American democracy.
As Congress sat to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, Donald Trump – in vain and arrogant stupidity – incited his supporters to attack the US Capitol building in Washington DC.
Yes, they may have fervently believed the President’s conspiracy theory (backed by not a scintilla of evidence) that the race to the White House was stolen.
But if they believed insurrection could ever defend the precious beacon of democracy, they were deluded. Rather, their rampage risked snuffing it out.
Truly, this marks one of the blackest moments in US political history.
Unfit for public office in the first place, Mr Trump has mutated from a reality TV show joke to a discordant, dangerous menace.
The one glimmer of brightness in this final outrage? The President grudgingly promised to leave the Oval Office on January 20 (if he’s not impeached first).
The world’s dictators, of course, will be gurgling with pleasure at the chaos.
Democracy depends on loser’s consent. Ending his presidency in disgrace, Mr Trump has irrevocably damaged that noble notion – and has destabilised the West.
Boris Johnson rightly condemned him for encouraging misrule. As America’s staunchest ally, Britain must now help it regain the moral high ground.
Democracy, this painful saga reminds us, is delicate. Whatever passions are stirred, accepting the results of elections is a hallmark of a cohesive and liberal society.
The alternatives – division and demagoguery – are too horrific to contemplate.