Newsman:House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said for the first time Sunday the House will move to impeach President Donald Trump if Vice President Mike Pence does not remove him.
Pelosi said the House will attempt to pass a resolution by unanimous consent Monday morning calling for Pence and Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office. The resolution will call on Pence to respond within 24 hours and, if not, the House would move to impeach the President. “Next,” Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic colleagues, “we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the Floor.”
If the resolution doesn’t pass by unanimous consent — and it most assuredly won’t given likely Republican resistance — then the measure will be brought to the floor for a full vote on Tuesday.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both. As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action,” Pelosi said.
House Democrats have rapidly coalesced around an impeachment resolution in the days following the riots at the Capitol where five people died, including a US Capitol Police officer.
Democratic Reps. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of California will introduce the impeachment resolution during Monday’s pro-forma House session, which includes one article charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection.”
Cicilline tweeted Sunday evening that the resolution now has more than 200 co-sponsors, nearly all of the Democratic caucus.
House Democrats are still discussing whether a vote to impeach Trump could be Tuesday or Wednesday, according to aides.
Pelosi said in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” Sunday evening that she liked the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment “because it gets rid of him,” but explained, “one of the motivations people have for advocating for impeachment” is to prevent Trump from holding office again.
“There’s strong support in the Congress for impeaching the President a second time,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell previously made clear in a memo that even if the House moved in the coming days to impeach Trump, the Senate would not return to session before January 19. That would place the start of the trial on January 20 — the date of Biden’s inauguration.
Pesident Elect Biden has repeatedly said it’s up to Congress to decide how to sanction Trump for his role in instigating the violent attack on the Capitol,
House Democrats, on a call Pelosi held Saturday night with her leadership team, discussed the option of impeaching Trump this week and waiting until later to send the article of impeachment over to the Senate to delay the trial until after the early days Biden’s presidency, according to Democrats in the party’s leadership.
