WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — House lawmakers are reconvening at the Capitol Tuesday for the first time since last week’s riots and siege of the U.S. Capitol, to approve a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald Trump unfit to serve.
The resolution is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House. After that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Pence will have 24 hours to respond but it is unlikely he will act. The House would then move swiftly to impeach President Trump.
Pence has given no indication he would act on the 25th Amendment and no member of the Cabinet has publicly called for Trump to be removed from office through the process.
The 25th Amendment says the vice president and a majority of principal officers of the executive departments “or of such other body as Congress” may by law provide a declaration to Congress that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” At that point, the vice president would immediately assume the powers of acting president.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the House will consider impeachment on Wednesday, just one week before Democrat Joe Biden is set to be inaugurated. Democratic lawmakers in the House introduced a single charge of impeachment — “incitement of insurrection” — against Trump Monday.
The four-page impeachment bill draws from Trump’s own false statements about his election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden; his pressure on state officials in Georgia to “find” him more votes; and his White House rally ahead of the Capitol siege, in which he encouraged thousands of supporters to “fight like hell” before they stormed the building on Wednesday.
NewsNation obtained a copy of the resolution. Read it below:
Passage of the resolution introduced Monday would make Trump the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.
House Republicans blocked a similar Democratic request Monday to bring up a resolution urging Pence to invoke constitutional authority to remove Trump from office. Democrats sought agreement to immediately bring up the resolution for debate, but Republicans stopped it on a voice vote.
Pelosi said the Republicans were enabling Trump’s “unhinged, unstable and deranged acts of sedition to continue. Their complicity endangers America, erodes our Democracy, and it must end.”
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said in a letter to colleagues that “impeachment at this time would have the opposite effect of bringing our country together.”
He said he would review possible censure of the president. But House Republicans are split and a few may vote to impeach.
Republican Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) said on Tuesday he will vote to impeach President Trump, becoming the first Republican House member to join Democrats in their bid to impeach the president.
“To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” Rep. Katko said.
U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, said in a statement late Tuesday that she will vote to impeach Trump as he “summoned” the mob that attacked the Capitol last week, “assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.” She says, “Everything that followed was his doing.”
Cheney says, “There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
She also notes that Trump could have immediately intervened to stop his supporters, but he did not.
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger became the third Republican member of Congress to call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment.
Kinzinger said in a statement Tuesday that Trump is responsible for whipping up “an angry mob” that stormed the Capitol last week, leaving five dead. He says “there is no doubt in my mind” that Trump “broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection.”
Trump spoke with reporters in some of his first public comments following the deadly riots at the Capitol saying there was “tremendous anger” about moves to impeach him but added he did not want violence.
“I want no violence,” Trump told reporters as he left for a trip to the border wall in Alamo, Texas.
You can see Trump’s full remarks in the player below.
Biden said Monday he’s had conversations with senators ahead of a possible impeachment trial about the possibility of splitting the chamber’s time in order to meet the goals of his new administration. Biden hoped the legislative body could “go a half day on dealing with impeachment, a half day on getting my people nominated and confirmed in the Senate.”
