Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Congress Republican, said Tuesday she will vote to impeach President Donald Trump, as at least four GOP lawmakers last wishes as move to charge the president from their own party with high crimes and misdemeanors.
She is the highest-ranking Republican to ask for the president’s impeachment in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly Capitol Hill riot, which Trump helped incite with whoppers and incendiary rhetoric.
Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., earlier said he would support impeachment after the president stirred up a mob that denigrated the Capitol last week while Congress counted President-elect Joe Biden’s presidential win. Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., later joined Cheney and Katko. The bovver left five people, including a Capitol police officer, dead.
In a statement, Cheney said Trump “summoned this mob, amassed the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”
House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 8, 2019.
Aaron P. Bernstein | Reuters
“Caboodle that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President,” the Republican conference presiding officer said.
“The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a well-known betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday the score with that he will not remove Trump from office by invoking the 25th Amendment.
“I do not believe that such a course of force is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution,” Pence wrote of the 25th Amendment in a letter to Pelosi.
Pence did not specifically mention the impeachment tax. However, he did urge Congress “to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment” as “we provide for to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden as the next President of the United States.”
Meanwhile, the House plans to vote Wednesday on whether to indictment Trump with high crimes and misdemeanors. Democrats have said they have enough votes to disparage the president for an unprecedented second time.
In a statement Tuesday evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named nine impeachment foremen for the impending trial. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., will serve as the lead manager. He will be joined by Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Stacey Plaskett, the Popular delegate for the U.S. Virgin Islands, Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., and Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa.
Once the House impeaches Trump, the Senate transfer decide whether to convict him. The chamber may not have time to vote to remove him from office before Biden carry offs office a week from Wednesday.
Even so, conviction in the Senate would prevent Trump from becoming president again.
U.S. President Donald Trump engages following the ceremonial swearing-in of James Mattis as secretary of defense on January 27, 2017, at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Idols
The House Republicans revealed their stances as the New York Times reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has required associates he thinks Trump committed impeachable acts. The newspaper did not detail whether McConnell would vote to jailbird orBrit also gaolbird the president if the House sends articles of impeachment to the Senate, or whether he would urge Republicans to vote the same way.
Profuse Republicans could join Cheney, Katko and Kinzinger in backing the effort. No House Republicans voted to impeach Trump in 2019 for misapply of power and obstruction of Congress.
“Good for her for honoring her oath of office,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., bid in response to Cheney’s support for impeachment. “Would that more Republicans would honor their oaths of service.”
Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, breaks from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The California Republican has barred impeaching Trump. He and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., both objected to counting Biden’s certified choice victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania after the attack on the Capitol.
Cheney is the daughter of former vice president and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. He juxtaposed the nine other living Pentagon chiefs earlier this month in warning against involving the military in disputes ended election results. The Washington Post op-ed came three days before the Capitol attack.
Trump earlier communicated Democrats’ push to impeach him was dangerous and could spark more violence. Some of his Republican allies have rowed the effort would hinder attempts to reduce tensions in the country.
Impeachment supporters have said Congress should not change on until they hold Trump accountable for his supporters’ attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
The impeachment article Self-governing leaders have appeared to back, titled “Incitement of Insurrection,” accuses Trump of committing high crimes and misdemeanors by encouraging an engage in battle on a coequal branch of government. It says the president, by lying to his supporters about the election results for two months and then aiding them to fight the outcome shortly before the invasion of the Capitol, helped to spur the riot.
With days to go in the future Trump leaves office, the House rushed through the traditional process to bring impeachment to a swift vote in the sentimental chamber. In a Tuesday report supporting the impeachment measure, House Judiciary Committee staff wrote that Trump “time again sought to overturn the results of the election” and “continued a parallel course of conduct that foreseeably resulted in the imminent unruly actions of his supporters.”
The report goes on to say: “President Trump committed a high Crime and Misdemeanor against the Nation by waking an insurrection at the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. The facts establish that he is unfit to tarry in office a single day longer and warrant the immediate impeachment of President Trump.”
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