Gov backs action vs. prez
Gov. Charlie Baker said he supports a second impeachment of President Trump after Vice President Mike Pence rejected appeals for him to invoke the 25th Amendment in the wake of last Wednesday’s siege on the nation’s Capitol.
U.S. House lawmakers voted 232197 to impeach Trump, making him the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.
The Republican governor and frequent Trump critic called on the president to “step down” last week in the immediate aftermath of the violence in Washington D.C.
Baker took a stronger stance on Wednesday during a briefing at the State House, saying “impeachment is the only one that’s left.”
“I said at the time that I believe that Vice President Pence should be empowered to manage the transition to a new administration, and I continue to believe that,” Baker said. “I also said that there were a number of means and mechanisms that were available to deal with that at that point in time. Since then, several have been taken off the table.”
Baker stressed the need for “this transition to be as clean and as coordinated as possible.”
Republican and Democratic leaders alike have called on Trump to resign in the days since a mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol building.
Trump’s supporters in the House, however, argued against impeachment.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said early in the proceedings, “I can think of no action the House could take that’s more likely to further divide the American people than the action we are contemplating today.”