‘The President’s actions must be met with consequence’
On Jan. 13, one week after the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a single article of impeachment against President Donald Trump for “Incitement of Insurrection.”
Congressman Joe Courtney, the Democrat representing eastern Connecticut’s 2nd District, voted in favor of impeachment. Proceedings now move to the Senate for a trial, but probably after Trump has left office. Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both Democrats, will be voting whether to convict the president and prohibit him from ever again seeking public office.
The following are comments made in response to the impeachment by our representatives in Washington.
Rep. Courtney
“There is no question that the president helped to foment and incite an attack on our Capitol and our democracy on January 6th, and representatives from both sides of the aisle came together … to show that there are consequences for these sorts of actions.
“The president incited a crowd of his supporters to march on Congress with express purpose to illegally and violently obstruct a constitutionally mandated proceeding, namely to tally the certified results of the electoral college. The president’s remarks falsely claimed that the election was ‘stolen,’ and called on the crowd to march on the Capitol and ‘fight like hell’ to ‘take back our country.’
“Leaders and elected officials from across the political spectrum, including from the president’s own Cabinet and leaders in the private sector, have stated that it was blindingly obvious that he incited the deadly violence, and afterwards failed to adequately quell the mayhem that trapped Vice President Pence and the leaders of a co-equal branch in a basement for hours.
“The president’s actions must be met with consequence. I am proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who did the right thing today by voting for this Article of Impeachment.”
Sen. Blumenthal
“Donald Trump is a clear, urgent threat to the safety of American lives. President Trump instigated and inflamed a violent attack on the United States Capitol. As a direct result of President Trump’s actions, at least five people are dead, including two Capitol Police officers.
“The impeachment of Donald Trump is essential to protect our national security and the peaceful transition of power. The people who say that impeaching President Trump is divisive are assuming that Republicans are divided with us on the basic issue of whether a president can incite a riot or voice support for violent extremism, which is what he did. Allowing this kind of conduct to go unchecked would be ruinous for our democracy. Senator McConnell must bring the Senate back into session immediately to begin a trial.”
Sen. Murphy
“(President Trump) has demonstrated exactly no remorse for the incitement he has engaged in. He had a chance early on in the assault on the Capitol to send the message that his supporters should stand down — and he would not do that. I don’t know what is impeachable conduct if this isn’t.”
On whether it makes sense to impeach someone leaving office:
“Countries that have experienced insurrections like the one we went through last week, those that skip the accountability phase, who just excuse the people who were involved in the violent act, those are the countries that don’t recover. Those are the countries who have a continual insurrection mounted against them.”