■ House Republicans asked President-elect Joe Biden to turn aside a push to impeach President Donald Trump.

House members want him to get Pelosi to back off impeachment

WASHINGTON — A group of House Republicans who voted to accept President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory asked him to persuade Speaker Nancy Pelosi to back off impeaching Donald Trump for instigating Wednesday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The lawmakers, led by Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, warned in a letter to Biden on Saturday that Trump’s impeachment would inflame his supporters anew and damage Biden’s efforts to unify the country.

“In the spirit of healing and fidelity to our Constitution, we ask that you formally request that Speaker Nancy Pelosi discontinue her efforts to impeach President Donald J. Trump a second time,” they wrote.

Pelosi has threatened to allow impeachment proceedings to start, perhaps as soon as Monday, unless Trump resigns after the insurrection at the Capitol. Many members of Congress in both parties have blamed Trump for the violence after he summoned supporters to Washington to protest while Congress counted Electoral College votes and then urged them to march on the Capitol in a Wednesday morning speech.

Five people died in the violence that ensued after Trump’s supporters stormed into the building, including a Capitol Police officer.

But the Republican House members said that “a presidential impeachment should not occur in the heat of the moment, but rather after great deliberation.”

They added that impeachment “would undermine your priority of unifying Americans, and would be a further distraction to our nation at a time when millions of our fellow citizens are hurting because of the pandemic and the economic fallout.”

Biden said in a news conference Friday that it was up to Congress to decide whether to impeach Trump but that the fastest way to remove the president would be his own inauguration on Jan. 20. He said he wanted Congress ready the day he is sworn in to address his agenda, led by new measures to curb the pandemic and stimulate the economy.