Trump Cabinet discussing invoking the 25th Amendment: reports

• Members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet are discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, CBS News, ABC newsand CNN reported.
• The extraordinary development comes after the president drove his supporters into a frenzy and a crowd of them invaded the United States Capitol, inciting violence and forcing lawmakers and officials to evacuate.
• CNN’s Jim Acosta reported that cabinet secretaries are in the preliminary stages of discussions on the 25th Amendment, and Margaret Brennan of CBS News reported that nothing concrete has yet been presented to Vice President Mike Pence.
• Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also sent a letter to Pence urging him to invoke the amendment and remove the president from office.
• Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.

Members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet are in the early stages of considering the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, several media outlets reported, a move that would be unlike any other since the amendment was ratified six decades ago.

CNN’s Jim Acosta reported that cabinet secretaries are in the preliminary stages of discussions, and Margaret Brennan of CBS News reported that nothing concrete has been presented to Vice President Mike Pence yet. ABC News also confirmed the reports, all of them anonymous.

The extraordinary development comes after Trump supporters, driven into a frenzy by the president’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, converged on Washington, DC and invaded the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, when Congress met to count the electoral votes and finalize that of President-elect Joe Biden victory.

The process is typically pro-forma and does not attract much national attention. But it came into the national spotlight this year because the president and his supporters have unmistakably said that Congress, and in particular Vice President Mike Pence, has legal authority to reject electoral votes from states where Trump said the election was “rigged” against he.

Congress and the vice president do not have that authority and are only tasked with counting the votes of the Electoral College that attest to the results of the general election. Legislators can oppose the vote, but for an objection to be upheld, it must be upheld by the House and the Senate. Since the Democratic Party controls the House, there is virtually no chance that Republicans who adhered to Trump’s pressure to overturn the election will succeed. Pence, for its part, plays no role in approving or rejecting a state’s electoral votes and its involvement in the matter is largely ceremonial.

Despite this, Trump has repeatedly stated that Pence and Congressional Republicans are required to “cancel certification” of the battlefield states’ electoral votes he lost because, he says, their respective elections were conducted fraudulently and their results, therefore, illegitimate. As reported by Business Insider, there is no evidence that any of these claims have merit and, in fact, the 2020 election was the safest and safest in the history of the United States.

Wednesday’s scene at the U.S. Capitol resembles something of a dystopian romance, when the president’s supporters break barriers, clash with the police, break into the Capitol building, vandalize and steal property and reach the floors of the House and of the Senate.

At the same time, lawmakers, Hill officials and reporters took shelter in their offices and behind makeshift barricades before being evacuated from the building. Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, occupied the lawmakers’ offices and roamed outside for hours after the evacuation, and the photos depicted several protesters carrying confederate flags around the building, sometimes flanked by portraits of Civil War figures.

A noose was erected outside the Capitol, and Trump supporters attacked members of the media who covered the riots as they unfolded. Tom Winter of NBC reported that half a dozen people were taken to the hospital, and it was later reported that a woman who was shot inside the Capitol died.

After the area and the building were secured, Congress met again to end the debate on electoral challenges and count the electoral votes. Several Republican legislators in the House and Senate have reversed their decisions to support Trump in his efforts after the riots, calling them “abominable”, “illegal” and “unacceptable”.

Several government officials resigned after the demonstrations, including First Lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff and former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews and the social secretary of the House White Rickie Niceta. Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell are all allegedly weighing resignation.

The Daily Beast reported that Trump’s advisers and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who is married to transport secretary Elaine Chao, personally called senior White House officials and cabinet secretaries and asked them to stay during in the evening.

Invoking the 25th Amendment

If the president’s office invokes the amendment, it would be the first time in the history of the United States that an incumbent president would be removed from office for a non-health issue. The amendment sets out the steps that can be taken to ensure a transition of power if a president is found to be unfit or unable to serve.

It has already been invoked three times, but only for reasons involving the president’s physical health. The first time was in July 1985, when then-President Ronald Reagan underwent colon cancer surgery. At the time, Reagan authorized Vice President George HW Bush to perform his duties while he was unable to do so.

The other two times the amendment was invoked were during the administration of George W. Bush in June 2002 and June 2007. In both cases, Bush temporarily transferred power to Vice President Dick Cheney while performing colonoscopies of routine.

If Trump’s cabinet invoked the amendment to remove him from office, it would be using Section IV, which allows the vice president and the majority of the cabinet to remove the president from office if they determine that he is inappropriate or unable to serve in his office. term.

The stipulation reads: “Whenever the vice president and most of the chief officers of the executive departments or any other body that Congress establishes by law, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the President of the House of Representatives their written declaration of that the President is unable to exercise the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office of Interim President. “