WASHINGTON – The House is positioned on Wednesday to accuse President Donald Trump for the second time, which will make him the first president to face this punishment twice.
House legislators are expected to vote on a single impeachment article at around 3 pm, accusing Trump of “inciting insurrection” in the wake of a pro-Trump crowd that violently attacked the U.S. Capitol building last Wednesday.
The vote takes place exactly a week before Induction Day, when Trump will step down and Joe Biden will be sworn in as president on the Capitol steps.
On Tuesday night, Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, passed a resolution calling for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. But before the vote, Pence made it clear that he would not, saying he did not believe “that such a course of action is in our nation’s best interest or consistent with our constitution.”
Democrats overwhelmingly expressed support for Trump’s impeachment and, on Tuesday night, a handful of Republicans said they planned to join their colleagues and impeachment during Wednesday’s vote. They include the president of the House Republican conference, Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., The most prominent, as well as the representatives. Fred Upton, R-Mich., Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. and John Katko, RN.Y.
The “incitement to insurrection” impeachment article was presented on Monday by the Reps. Jaime Raskin, D-Md., Ted Lieu, D-Calif., And David Cicilline, DR.I. He says Trump “has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy and the constitution if he is allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-government and the rule of law.”
“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power and endangered a co-equal branch of government,” says the five-page article in the impeachment. “With that, he betrayed his confidence as president, to manifest injury to the people of the United States.”
The article also cites Trump’s January 2 call urging Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to override state election results as part of his effort “to subvert and obstruct certification of the results. of the 2020 presidential election. “
Trump, for his part, has no public events on his schedule on Wednesday and with Twitter banning his account last week, the president will not be able to tweet about the impeachment process as he did when the House impeached him in December 2019.
A former White House official told NBC News that Trump is partly “defiant … partly grumpy”, while another source said the president is hardening on his challenge. This source said the president’s comments on Tuesday that he had done nothing wrong undermined his allies’ efforts to try to dissuade him from things that could make it more difficult to limit the number of Republicans who support impeachment.
“No one told him to say anything,” added the source. “This is him being him.”
Biden, meanwhile, has no public events on its schedule on Wednesday. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will participate in a virtual financial event for the committee that is organizing the inauguration next week.
After the Trump impeachment House, the next step is for the Senate to hold a trial to determine whether it will convict him and potentially prevent him from running for any office again. Although it is not entirely clear yet when the trial will take place, the majority leader in the House, Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Said earlier this week that he wants to send the impeachment article to the upper house immediately after it is approved.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Appointed nine Democratic impeachment managers to the trial on Tuesday, with Raskin leading the team that will try to prosecute Trump.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Said last week that the earliest the Senate could accept the articles would be January 19, unless all 100 senators agreed to return early.
Kristen Welker, Peter Alexander, Carol E. Lee, Monica Alba, Kelly O’Donnell and Hallie Jackson contributed.