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Donald Trump Impeachment Session Live: Donald Trump’s Second Impeachment Session Opens: Live Updates
Trump House Impeachment Vote: Donald Trump has eight days remaining in his term (File)
New Delhi:
The Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives on Wednesday opened debate on a historic second impeachment of President Donald Trump over his supporters’ attack of the Capitol that left five dead.
Lawmakers in the lower chamber are expected to vote for impeachment around 3:00 pm — marking the formal opening of proceedings against Trump.
With eight days remaining in Trump’s term, the House will vote today on an article of impeachment accusing the Republican of inciting insurrection in a speech to his followers last week before a mob of them stormed the Capitol, leaving five dead.
Democrats moved forward on an impeachment vote after a effort to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to remove Trump was rejected by Pence on Tuesday evening.
Here are the Live Updates of debate on Donald Trump’s impeachment:
Nancy Pelosi released a letter on Friday calling on Trump to resign and said that if he refused, Pence and the cabinet should remove the “unhinged” president from office by invoking the 25th Amendment.
Pelosi said that if Pence refused to invoke the 25th Amendment, the House would move to impeach Trump for a second time.
Rather than a two-thirds vote, a simple Senate majority is needed to disqualify Trump from future office. There is disagreement among legal experts as to whether a conviction on an impeachment charge would be needed before a disqualification vote. A different part of the Constitution, the 14th Amendment, also provides a procedure for disqualifying Trump from future office with a simple majority of both chambers.
The New York Times reported that the Republican majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, was said to be pleased about the Democratic impeachment push, suggesting Trump’s party was looking to move on from him after the attack on Congress.
McConnell believes the impeachment effort will make it easier to purge Trump from the party, the Times said.
“I don’t think you would have a hard time finding 17 Republicans to convict” with a tightly drawn article of impeachment, a former Senate Republican leadership aide told Reuters. “I think for McConnell, there’s a very strong impulse for this (the Capitol assault) not to define the party.”
McConnell has said no trial could begin until the chamber returns from its recess on Jan. 19.
House Republicans who opposed the impeachment drive argued Democrats were going too far, as Trump was on the verge of leaving office.
“This is scary where this goes, because this is about more than about impeaching the president of the United States. This is about cancelling the president and cancelling all the people you guys disagree with,” said Republican Representative Jim Jordan, a leading Trump ally when the president was impeached in 2019 after encouraging the government of Ukraine to dig up political dirt on Biden.
Democrats moved forward on an impeachment vote after a effort to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to remove Trump was rejected by Pence on Tuesday evening.
“I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution,” Pence said in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Despite the letter, the House passed a resolution formally calling on Pence to act. The final vote was 223-205 in favor.
In his first public appearance since last Wednesday’s riot, Trump showed no contrition on Tuesday for his speech, in which he repeated his false claim that President-elect Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate. Biden will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20.
“What I said was totally appropriate,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday in his first public foray since the assault on the Capitol.
At a meeting to set the rules for Wednesday’s impeachment vote, Democratic Representative David Cicilline told the House Rules Committee that the impeachment drive had the support of 217 lawmakers – enough to impeach Trump
With at least five Republicans joining their push to impeach President Donald Trump over the storming of the U.S. Capitol, Democrats in the House of Representatives stood poised for a history-making vote to try to remove the president from office.
Republican leaders in the House did not urge their members to vote against impeaching Trump, saying it was a matter of individual conscience.
