A majority of the House of Representatives voted last night to make Donald Trump the first US president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him in his waning days in power with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol.
With the vote ongoing, a majority of legislators in the Democratic-controlled chamber voted in favour of impeachment over an incident that represented a deadly assault on American democracy.
But it appeared unlikely that the extraordinarily swift impeachment would lead to Trump’s ouster before the Republican president’s four-year term ends and Democratic President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20. The Senate’s Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, rejected Democratic calls to convene the Senate in emergency session to begin an immediate impeachment trial, according to a spokesman.
The House passed a single article of impeachment – a formal charge – accusing Trump of “incitement of insurrection,” focused upon an incendiary speech he delivered to thousands of supporters shortly before the pro-Trump mob rampaged through the Capitol. The mob disrupted the formal certification of Biden’s victory over Trump in the November 3 election, sent legislators into hiding and left five people dead, including a police officer.
During his speech, Trump repeated false claims that the election was fraudulent and exhorted supporters to march on the Capitol.
“The president of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our common country,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said on the House floor before the vote. “He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.”