Donald Trump Impeached For Inciting Us Capitol Riot
In historic vote, Trump becomes first US president to be impeached a second time for inciting mob that attacked the Capitol.
The US House of Representatives has impeached President Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection after a mob of his supporters stormed the United States Capitol last week, marking the first time in US history that a president has been impeached twice.
The House resolution, which passed by a vote of 232-197 on Wednesday afternoon, states that Trumps actions and remarks ahead of the storming of the Capitol building in Washington, DC incited the rioters.
Today, in a bipartisan way, the House demonstrated that no one is above the law not even the President of the United States, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she signed the article of impeachment after the vote.
The measure, Pelosi said, also makes clear that Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to our country.
Ten Republicans joined 222 Democrats in voting to impeach Trump, making the vote a bipartisan rebuke of the presidents attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The riot at the Capitol on January 6 left five people dead and sent shockwaves across the US and the world, spurring Democratic Party legislators to launch an impeachment push against Trump in his final days in the White House.
Constitutionality Of Senate Trial Of Former President
The question of whether the Senate can hold a trial for and convict a former president is unsettled. Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution provides:
| The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. | ||
| Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution |
Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution, also states the following:
| Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. | ||
| Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, of the U.S. Constitution |
J. Michael Luttig, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for 25 years, said that such a trial would be unconstitutional. He interpreted the language of Section 4 to refer to an official in office.
Luttig said, “The very concept of constitutional impeachment presupposes the impeachment, conviction and removal of a president who is, at the time of his impeachment, an incumbent in the office from which he is removed. Indeed, that was the purpose of the impeachment power, to remove from office a president or other ‘civil official’ before he could further harm the nation from the office he then occupies.”
Rand Paul’s Point Of Order To Dismiss
On January 26, Republican Senator Rand Paul forced a vote to dismiss the impeachment charge, on the basis that it was unconstitutional to try a past president. The motion was defeated 5545, with all Democrats, both the independents, and five Republicans voting against the motion. The vote was seen as a “test vote” and was viewed as a strong indication that the Senate would not reach the two-thirds majority required to convict Trump.
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Trump Unequivocally Condemns Violence
The impeachment article states that in the months before January 6, Trump repeated false claims of widespread election fraud and said the results should not be accepted.
He also willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged and foreseeably resulted in lawless action at the Capitol, such as: if you dont fight like hell youre not going to have a country any more,’ the article states.
Trump did not immediately comment on his impeachment.
But in a video posted on the White House Twitter account on Wednesday evening, he condemned the attack on the Capitol and said there was no excuse for violence.
I want to be very clear, I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week. Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement, Trump said.
The president had remained defiant on Tuesday, rejecting Democrats impeachment effort as dangerous and a continuation of the greatest and most vicious witch hunt in the history of our country.
House Intelligence Committee Hearings
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On November 6, 2019, Chairman Adam Schiff announced that the first public hearings of the impeachment inquiry would be held on November 13, beginning with Bill Taylor and George Kent. The announcement added that would testify in the second public hearing on November 15. The White House appointed new aides, including Pam Bondi and Tony Sayegh, to work on communications during the inquiry. House Republicans assigned Representative Jim Jordan to the House Intelligence Committee to participate in the hearings. Jordan replaced Representative Rick Crawford , who stepped down so Jordan could take his place.
Per the House of Representatives resolution adopted in October 2019, Republican representatives can subpoena witnesses only with the concurrence of the Democratic committee chairman or with approval of the majority members. The House Intelligence Committee ranking member, Representative Devin Nunes , in a November 9 letter, provided a list of eight witnesses from whom the minority party wished to hear, including Hunter Biden. In Schiff’s decline of the request to hear from Biden, he said he would not allow Republicans to use the hearings to conduct “sham investigations”. Schiff also rejected Nunes’s request to question the anonymous whistleblower, for the individual’s safety and because subsequent evidence “not only confirms but far exceeds” the whistleblower’s complaint, so “the whistleblower’s testimony is therefore redundant and unnecessary”.
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Trump ‘apologizes’ To Matt Gaetz On Behalf Of America America Rolls Its Eyes
Kevin McCarthy, the frontrunner for House Speaker if Republicans retake the House, has privately said that a serious Biden impeachment process would likely be poor politics for the GOP, according to two people familiar with the matter. McCarthy, the people say, has noted that impeaching Biden risks boosting his approval rating. In an October interview with Punchbowl News, McCarthy downplayed the possibility of impeachment but didnt rule it out.
When we took the majority, the Clinton impeachment sapped out a lot of momentum that could have gone towards crafting policy instead, says former congressman Jack Kingston, who has also advised Trump and acted as a surrogate during his presidency. I dont think working to impeach a president who is going to be a lame duck this time next week would be a good expenditure of time.
Trump himself has inquired about potential political pitfalls of impeachment in his conversations with lawmakers. The president definitely said Biden deserves it, but he also asked if it would even work and if impeachment would be good for polls, says one of the sources, recalling a conversation that occurred in the past three months.
Spokespeople for Trump and McCarthy did not respond to requests for comment.
Other MAGA lawmakers, however, have said that impeaching Biden and his administration is critical for the party if it takes control of the House.
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Trump Et Al V Mazars Et Al
The House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to the Mazars accounting firm for Trump’s financial information from before his election to the presidency. The President and his lawyers have tried to delay or prevent this information from getting to the committee by seeking a court injunction against both the committee’s leadership and Mazars.
On April 23, 2019 U.S. district judge Amit Mehta set a May 14 date for the preliminary hearing, although several weeks later he decided the entire suit would be heard on that date. May 20, Mehta ruled that accounting firm Mazars had to provide its records of Donald Trump‘s accounts from before his presidency to the House Oversight Committee in response to their subpoena. In a 41-page opinion, he asserted that Congress has the right to investigate potential illegal behavior by a president, including actions both before and after the president assumed office. The ruling was appealed by Trump’s personal legal team and briefs for such were due by no later than July 12, 2019, when oral arguments were scheduled.
Oral arguments took place on July 12, 2019, before a three-judge panel consisting of Neomi Rao, David Tatel, and Patricia Millett. On August 8, the Justice Department filed a brief supporting the president’s position. On October 11, 2019, the appeal panel affirmed the ruling 2â1 with Neomi Rao dissenting.
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After The 2018 Midterm Elections
On March 11, 2019, Nancy Pelosi said, “I’m not for impeachment, Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it. No. I don’t think he is. I mean, ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity wise unfit. No, I don’t think he’s fit to be president of the United States.” She then scolded herself for “coming across too negatively”.
With the Democrats in control of the House, and with a direct impeachment inquiry deemed somewhat toxic, the work of investigations into Trump’s possible crimes were divided into several committees while waiting for some outside force, such as the Mueller probe or the Southern District to force the Democratic leadership’s hands.
Trump Reacts To Impeachment Vote At Rally
Minutes before the vote on Wednesday night, Trump took the stage at a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan.
“It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” he told the cheering crowd. “The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. And we have tremendous support in the Republican Party like we ave never had before. Nobody has ever had this kind of support.”
Download the NBC News app for full coverage of Trump’s impeachment
Hours before the vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., took to the House floor to say it was imperative to impeach a president for the first time in two decades because Trump is “an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections.”
“It is an established fact the president violated the Constitution,” Pelosi said, standing next to a sign with aa U.S. flag that quoted a line from the Pledge of Allegiance: “To the Republic, for which it stands …”
Emotions ran high inside the Capitol ahead of the vote, with Democrats and Republicans accusing one another of acting in bad faith during 10 hours of debate.
Speaking on the floor, Rep. Debbie Lesko, R.-Ariz., said, “I believe this is the most unfair, politically biased rigged process that I have seen in my entire life.”
“This is the most partisan impeachment in the history of the United States,” she added. “Not one Republican voted for it in the Judiciary Committee. … Not one Republican, I don’t think, is going to vote for it here today.”
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President Donald Trump: Second Impeachment
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday made Donald Trump the first US president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him with inciting an insurrection in a vote held a week after a violent mob of his supporters besieged the Capitol.
The Democratic-led House’s 232-197 passage of a single article of impeachment in a historic vote in the waning days of Trump’s four-year term in office does not remove him from office. Rather it moves the drama over his political fate to the Senate, which remains in the hands of Trump’s fellow Republicans for now but later this month will be under Democratic control.
Ten Republicans joined with the Democrats in backing impeachment in a vote held with National Guard forces and police protecting the Capitol, which was surrounded by a security fence erected after the deadly 6 January rampage.
Furious after the siege, House Democrats, under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, argued that leaving the wealthy businessman-turned-politician in office until his four-year term ends would pose a threat to national security, democracy and the US Constitution. The pro-Trump mob interrupted the formal certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 3 November election. Biden will take office on 20 January.
Impasse And Final Vote
Prior to the House impeachment vote, McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham expressed their intentions not to be impartial jurors, contrary to the oath they must take. McConnell said, “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision.” Graham said, “I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here … I will do everything I can to make die quickly.”
On January 14, 2020, Pelosi announced the House managers who would prosecute the case in the Senate. On January 15, the House voted on Resolution 798, which appointed the impeachment managers and approved the articles of impeachment to be sent to the Senate. Later that afternoon, Pelosi held a rare public engrossment ceremony, followed by a stately procession of the managers and other House officers across the Capitol building, where the third impeachment of a U.S. president was announced to the senate. With the exception of the managers, who would conduct the trial, the House’s involvement in the impeachment process came to an end.
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Feinstein Votes To Convict In Second Trump Impeachment Trial
WashingtonSenator Dianne Feinstein today released the following statement on her vote to convict former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial:
The Constitution reserves impeachment for cases of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Congress must never take this action lightly and only in the most extreme circumstances.
On January 13, the House of Representatives voted 232-197 to impeach Donald Trump on a count of inciting the insurrection that took place on January 6.
I have taken care over the past week to fulfill my charge as an impartial juror in this trial. I have listened carefully to the presentations made by both sides. And I believe the House impeachment managers proved the case that Donald Trump bears responsibility for inciting the violence and the insurrection on January 6.
I therefore cast my vote to convict him of the impeachment charge.
The argument has been made that Donald Trump is no longer president, thus he cannot be removed from office as he has already left.
I understand the argument, but it fails on several counts.
First, failure to act would set the precedent that a president can get away with anything at the end of his term. Relying on criminal proceedings in place of impeachment is insufficient Congress must have the power to impeach regardless of when actions occur. Indeed, the House approved the article of impeachment when Donald Trump was still president.
Communications With Ukrainian Officials
On September 20, 2019, reported that Trump had in a July 25 phone conversation repeatedly pressed Ukrainian president Zelenskyy to investigate matters relating to . reported that Trump told Zelenskyy to speak to Giuliani, and according to The Wall Street Journal, he urged Zelenskyy “about eight times” to work with Giuliani and investigate Biden’s son. On September 22, Trump acknowledged he had discussed Joe Biden during the call with Zelenskyy, and that he had said: “We don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.” As of October 2019, there has been no evidence produced of any of the alleged wrongdoing by the Bidens.
The Wall Street Journal reported on September 30 that Secretary of State also listened in on the call. Two days later, The Washington Post reported that Vice President Mike Pence’s national security advisor had listened in on the call as well, and that “Pence should have had access to the transcript within hours.” Others on the line included , the National Security Council’s senior director for Europe and Russia , an aide to and , a Ukraine expert for the NSC.
During the conversation, Zelenskyy mentioned that on his last visit to the U.S., he had stayed in . Ethics advocacy groups described this comment as an attempt to curry favor.
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On Whether To Vote To Convict
Senate Democrats favored the conviction of Trump, stating that the evidence was clear and straightforward. Assuming all Democratic senators had voted to convict Trump, 17 Republican senators would have needed to vote to secure the two-thirds majority for conviction. If Trump had been convicted, then the Senate could have disqualified him from holding any federal office by a simple majority vote. On February 9, 45 senators supported conviction, 35 senators opposed conviction, and 20 senators had not released an official statement. This implied that to convict Trump with the required two-thirds majority, some of the Republican senators who said they opposed conviction would have needed to change their minds, either by voting to convict or by not appearing for the vote. Senator Lindsey Graham worked to persuade other Republicans to vote against conviction. In January, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Majority Leader, reportedly told senators their decision on whether to convict the outgoing president would be a “vote of conscience” and told colleagues he was undecided whether he himself would vote to convict. He later stated on the Senate floor that President Trump “provoked” the mob that stormed the Capitol. However, McConnell announced on the morning of February 13 that he would vote to acquit Trump.
The summons to Trump was issued the same day.
