A trio of House Democrats plans to present articles of impeachment against President Trump on Monday for inciting insurrection after Wednesday’s US Capitol riots, several sources familiar with the efforts told CBS News.
The impeachment articles claim that Mr. Trump was involved in “serious crimes and misdemeanors for intentionally inciting violence against the United States government”.
Sources told CBS News Mr. Trump don’t plan to resign. But for the first time, the White House acknowledged that impeachment is a real possibility, saying it would only divide the country further.
The White House on Friday called the impeachment articles “politically motivated” and repeated Trump’s claims the night before that he was calling for “healing and unity”.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Friday that Democrats have “sincere hope” that Trump “will resign immediately.” But, she said that if he doesn’t, she is prepared to move forward with Congressman Jamie Raskin’s 25th Amendment legislation and impeachment motion.
In an hour-long call with Democratic lawmakers on Friday, Pelosi supported the removal of Trump from office, although a source on the call told CBS News that his preference was for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. President-elect Joe Biden rejected when asked about it on Friday, saying that “it was up to Congress to decide.”
The impeachment articles have 150 co-sponsors, a sign of widespread support among House Democrats to take action after the Capitol violence.
CBS News obtained a memo that was written by Senator Mitch McConnell’s team and distributed to members on Friday night that presents a timetable for a possible Senate impeachment trial. Without unanimous consent to bring all senators back within the next 10 days, the quickest the Senate will be able to receive impeachment articles from the House is January 19, the memo states.
Twitter, meanwhile, has permanently suspended the president of the platform, citing “the risk of further incitement to violence”, the company announced on Friday.
Samuel Corum / Getty Images
Contributing: Arden Farhi