‘Deranged Trump must go’
IMPEACHMENT: DEMOCRATS CALL FOR US PRESIDENT’S HEAD AFTER RIOT At least 180 members of Congress agree the process must proceed.
US Democrats on Saturday were readying for an unprecedented second impeachment of Donald Trump as the defiant president showed no signs of stepping down after the deadly violence at the Capitol.
Democrats said impeachment proceedings could begin as early as today – an extraordinary acceleration of a process that historically has taken weeks, but one that might not be completed before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office 20 on January.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Democrats will launch the process unless Trump resigns or vice-president Mike Pence invokes the 25th Amendment, where the Cabinet removes the president.
“He’s deranged, unhinged and dangerous. He must go,” tweeted Pelosi, referring to Trump.
The move to impeach came amid continued fury over the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday last week by angry Trump supporters, which left five people dead.
The impeachment text – signed by at least 180 members of Congress so far, according to Democratic congressman Ted Lieu – laid blame squarely at the president’s feet.
“In all of this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government. He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperilled a coordinate branch of government,” it reads.
Trump, who had urged his supporters to go to Washington for a rally opposing his November election loss, has remained defiant, even after finally posting a video last Thursday in which he belatedly promised an “orderly transition” to the Biden administration.
But the president also said, “it’s only the beginning of our fight.”
That sort of language prompted Twitter to suspend him permanently and fuelled Democrats’ moves against him.
The Twitter ban drew an angry response from Trump, who in a statement accused the platform – where he had more than 88 million followers – of having “coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left”.
Twitter not only suspended the @realDonaldTrump account but took action against others, including @POTUS, when he briefly turned to them.
Several Democrats and at least one Republican lawmaker – Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – have urged Trump to resign and avoid the messiness of impeachment proceedings in his final full week in power, but he reportedly has remained defiant in talks with his aides.
Trump has said he never intended for his supporters to attack the Capitol building – where Congress had convened to certify Biden’s victory in the state-by-state Electoral College tally – but only meant to encourage peaceful protest.
But in the chaos, one Trump supporter was shot and killed, while a Capitol policeman was gravely wounded and died the following day.
Lawmakers, reporters and staff were forced to take shelter while invaders looted and vandalised the historic building.
Just as when Trump was impeached in a traumatic 2019 partisan vote – but not convicted – the process requires fi rst majority backing in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and then, for conviction, twothirds approval in the Senate.
“I do think the president committed impeachable offences,” said Senator Pat Toomey in an interview on Fox News on Saturday.
But Trump supporters, including Senator Lindsey Graham, have urged Biden to intervene with Democratic lawmakers to call off the impeachment effort. –
Twitter coordinated with the Democrats and Left