House impeaches Trump. First U.S. president to be impeached twice

By Lauren Egan and Rebecca Shabad

WASHINGTON — The House impeached President Donald Trump Wednesday for a second time, charging the president with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the violent riot by a pro-Trump mob of the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead and terrorized lawmakers as they sought to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

The vote to impeach passed the Democratic-controlled House 232 to 197, with 10 Republicans voting against the president.

The House is expected to immediately send the article of impeachment to the Senate for them to begin the process of holding a trial to determine whether to convict Trump and potentially bar him from ever running for any office again.

However, it is unlikely that the trial will begin before the Senate plans to reconvene on Jan. 19th, just one day before Biden is sworn into office.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a member of the GOP leadership, was the highest ranking Republican to vote to impeach Trump. She was joined by John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan, Peter Meijer of Michigan, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Tom Rice of South Carolina, David Valadao of California, and Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington.

No House Republican voted to impeach Trump during the inquiry earlier in his term that resulted in a Senate acquittal.

“Those insurrectionists were not patriots. They were not part of a political base to be catered to or managed. They were domestic terrorists and justice must prevail,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor, kicking off two hours of debate before the final vote was held.

“But they did not appear out of a vacuum. They were sent here, sent here by the president, with words such as a cry to ‘fight like hell,’” Pelosi, D-Calif., continued. “The president saw the insurrectionists not as the foes of freedom, as they are, but as the means to a terrible goal: the goal of him personally clinging to power.”

Many House Republicans argued during debate that Trump was not afforded due process and that the impeachment process was rushed. Some said that impeaching the president for a second time would only further divide the country while others maintained that Trump’s actions on Jan. 6th did not meet the legal standard for incitement.

“I believe impeaching the president in such a short timeframe would be a mistake,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, said during debate.

“No investigations have been completed. No hearings have been held,” he added. “A vote to impeach will further fan the flames of partisan division.”

Other Republicans cried hypocrisy, criticizing Democrats for their support for the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the country last summer.

“For months, our cities burned, police stations burned, our businesses were shattered, and they said nothing,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. “Some have cited the metaphor that the president lit the flame. Well, they lit actual flames.”

It is unclear what will happen in the Senate once the trial begins. Although Trump is likely to have already left office by then, a vote to convict Trump could still bar him from holding federal office again.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told his Republican colleagues Wednesday afternoon that he remains undecided on whether he will vote to convict the president.

“While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” McConnell wrote in a letter to his colleagues.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that McConnell had privately voiced support for the Democrats’ move to impeach Trump.

McConnell’s leadership team — which includes Republican Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Rick Scott of Florida and Roy Blunt of Missouri — were not given a heads up from the Senate leader ahead of The New York Times story and felt blindsided, according to multiple aides familiar with the day’s events.

It is rare for McConnell to stake out a position without first consulting with his leadership team or even his entire conference. Some aides believe that if McConnell were to come out publicly in favor of impeachment, other senators would join him.

The impeachment vote follows a House vote late Tuesday night to formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. The act, which was largely symbolic, passed the House 223 to 205 along partisan lines with Kinzinger as the sole Republican to vote in favor of the measure.

Pence, who was one of the targets of the violent mob that attacked the Capitol last week, informed Pelosi shortly before the vote that he would not invoke the 25th Amendment, writing in a letter to the speaker that he didn’t believe “such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution.”

Lawmakers arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday morning to debate the article just one week after the attack, entering a now heavily guarded building swarming with thousands of National Guard officers.

Hundreds of the armed officers slept at the Capitol Tuesday night. The Senate Historian Office said they were aware of only two other occasions during which troops stayed overnight in the Capitol: During World War II and amid the riots in the D.C. in 1968.

The “incitement of insurrection” article of impeachment was introduced Monday by three House Democrats: Jaime Raskin of Maryland, Ted Lieu of California and David Cicilline of Rhode Island. It says Trump has “demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.”

“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government,” the five-page article of impeachment continues. “He thereby betrayed his trust as president, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”

The article also cites Trump’s Jan. 2 phone call urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the state’s election results as part of his effort “to subvert and obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election.”

As the House debated the article of impeachment, Trump, unable to tweet about the process as he did when the House impeached him in December 2019 after Twitter banned his account last week, released a statement urging that “there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind.”

“That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers.”

Pelosi named nine Democratic impeachment managers for the trial Tuesday, with Raskin leading the team that will seek to prosecute Trump.

NBC