IMPEACHED, AGAIN
House votes after deadly Capitol riot
President Trump condemned “mob violence” and called for “calm tempers” from his supporters after the U.S. House of Representatives impeached him for inciting the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in a bipartisan vote Wednesday that made Trump the first president in the nation’s history to be impeached twice.
“Whether you are on the right or on the left, a Democrat or a Republican, there is never a justification for violence,” Trump said in a video after the House vote that made no mention of his impeachment, adding, “Now I am asking everyone who has ever believed in our agenda to be thinking of ways to ease tensions, calm tempers and help to promote peace in our country.”
House lawmakers voted 232-197 to impeach Trump, with 10 Republicans voting yes alongside the Democrats, as National Guard members stood watch.
Trump is the only president to be impeached twice. He was first impeached in 2019 but was acquitted early last year by the U.S. Senate. Three presidents have been impeached, but none have been convicted by the Senate thus far. Attention will now be back on the upper chamber for Trump’s new trial.
The president was charged with “incitement of insurrection” just a week after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, smashing windows and looting and ransacking rooms in an afternoon of violence that sent lawmakers scurrying for shelter and left five people dead.
“Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for,” Trump said in his video. “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence.”
House lawmakers’ arguments over impeachment largely fell along party lines, as Democrats painted Trump as a “danger” while Republicans called for “healing” instead of a “sham impeachment.”
“We know that the president of the United States incited this insurrection,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.”
But U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a staunch Trump ally, blasted Democrats’ “obsession” with “cancel culture.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said that while Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on the Capitol, impeaching him at the end of his term was a “mistake” that could “further divide the nation.”
House lawmakers moved with extraordinary speed to impeach Trump exactly one week after the riot and one week before his term expired.
They simultaneously urged Vice President Mike Pence and the dwindling number of Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to strip Trump of his powers, but Pence rejected those calls.
With that option off the table, the entire Massachusetts delegation in the House, all Democrats, voted to impeach.
“We are debating this historic measure at an actual crime scene, and we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the president,” U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said.
No House Republican voted to impeach Trump in 2019. But 10 did so this time — including No. 3 GOP member U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who is now facing calls to oust her from her leadership post.
As Democrats pushed for swift proceedings in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said “there is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could conclude before” President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next week, meaning the trial could spill into his first term.