US House votes for second impeachment of Trump

WASHINGTON (AP):

A majority of the US House has voted to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time, just a week after he encouraged loyalists to “fight like hell” against election results – a speech that was followed by a mob of his supporters storming the US Capitol. The House vote on an article of impeachment for “incitement of insurrection” was still under way Wednesday afternoon.

During debate before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Republicans and Democrats to “search their souls”. Trump would be the first American president to be impeached twice.

Trump “must go”, Pelosi said. “He is a clear and present danger to the nation we all love.”

Actual removal seems unlikely before the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Republican leader would not agree to bring the chamber back immediately, all but ensuring a Senate trial could not begin at least until January 19.

Still, McConnell did not rule out voting to convict Trump in the event of a trial. In a note to his fellow Republican senators just before the House was to begin voting, he said he is undecided.

“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 the House, the momentum for action has been unstoppable.

The impeachment proceedings came one week after a violent, pro-Trump mob breached the US Capitol, sending lawmakers into hiding and revealing the fragility of the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of power. The riot has also forced a reckoning among some Republicans, who have stood by Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election.

VIOLATED OATH

While Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 brought no Republican votes in the House, at least 10 House Republicans announced that they would break with the party to join Democrats this time, saying Trump violated his oath to protect and defend US democracy. Among them was Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

As two Republican lawmakers – Washington Representatives Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler – announced on the floor they would vote to impeach, Trump issued a new statement urging “NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind.” But he has repeatedly declined to take any responsibility for last week’s riots.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said for the first time that Trump does bear responsibility, acknowledging on the House floor before the vote that Biden is the next president and that radical liberal groups were not responsible for the riots, as some conservatives have falsely claimed.

But McCarthy said he opposed impeachment, instead favouring a “fact-finding commission” and censure.