US has checks and balances in place to remove Trump, says Minister

THE US has the “checks and balances” in place to potentially oust President Donald Trump early over his encouragement of the assault on the Capitol, a UK Cabinet Minister has said.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps declined to give his backing to calls to remove the Republican

by invoking the 25th Amendment over concerns about his fitness to remain in office.

But he described as “despicable” the scenes after Mr Trump encouraged the mob of supporters to march to Congress in Washington DC with his baseless allegations of electoral fraud.

“What happened completely dishonours democracy and it was despicable to see those people encouraged to go to the Capitol building and ransack it like that, and there’s people’s lives that have been lost as well,” Mr Shapps told Sky News.

“But leave it to the Americans to resolve. America’s a great democracy, they’ve got all the institutions in place, the checks and balances are there, and to see something like that happen in the United States is really quite extraordinary and I know there will be quite some reflection on that.”

Pressure is increasing for Mr

Trump to be ousted from the White House ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged vice- president Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to declare Mr Trump unable to perform his duties.

The move would require Mr

Pence, who was an unwavering ally of the president until this week, defying his final attempt to overturn the election, and at least eight cabinet members to invoke the amendment. Ms Pelosi has threatened to work to impeach the president once again if the cabinet does not act swiftly.