The House passed a resolution formally asking Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows the majority of a cabinet to remove a president from office if they deem him unfit. The resolution requires Pence to respond within 24 hours, or the House will proceed with the impeachment process against the president.
Before the House voted on the resolution, Pence said in a letter to Mayor Nancy Pelosi that she would not invoke the 25th Amendment. The vice president said he did not “believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation or is consistent with our constitution”.
But some Republicans in Congress are starting to break up with the president after a deadly attack on the Capitol last week by a violent crowd of Trump supporters. Five Republicans, including Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the third Republican in the House, said they would vote for Trump’s impeachment.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a United States president in office and his oath to the constitution,” Cheney said in a statement on Tuesday, accusing the president of inciting violence among his supporters. In a speech at a rally just hours before the rioters took over the Capitol, Trump repeatedly refused to give in, urged Republican lawmakers to try to overturn the election and encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell”.
The House is expected to move forward with a vote on impeachment on Wednesday. An impeachment article presented in the House on Monday and supported by more than 200 Democrats accuses Trump of “inciting insurrection” and says he “has seriously jeopardized the security of the United States and its institutions of government”.
A report released by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday night said the president “committed a high crime and misdemeanor against the nation by inciting a Capitol insurrection in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Elections.”
Some Republicans denounced the president, but refused to go so far as to say impeachment. A group of six House Republicans tabled a resolution on Tuesday censoring Trump for “trying to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election and violating his term oath” on January 6. Unlike impeachment, censorship would have no practical consequences, but simply be a formal condemnation.
The president refused to take any responsibility for the deadly attack that left five dead. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump said his speech to supporters before breaking into the Capitol was “entirely appropriate”.