Nancy Pelosi: Donald Trump must be impeached and he must be convicted

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is not willing to consider a charge before Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20
Michael Howie13 January 2021

Nancy Pelosi has described Donald Trump as a “clear and present danger to the nation that we all love” at a debate into whether the President should be impeached. 

The Speaker of the House said Mr Trump must be impeached and must be convicted for inciting an armed rebellion against the country. 

The top Democrat’s attack came as the US House of Representatives began debating whether to impeach Mr Trump for inciting supporters who stormed the Capitol last week, as a ring of steel was thrown around the complex to prevent further violent protests. 

Thousands of National Guard troops were stationed inside and outside the Capitol in Washington DC as the debate got underway on Wednesday, a week after the unprecedented assault on American democracy that stunned the world and left five dead.

“We cannot escape history. We know that the president of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion. ... He must go,” Ms Pelosi said. 

"He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.

"The president must be impeached, and I believe the president must be convicted by the Senate, a constitutional remedy that will ensure that the republic will be safe from this man who was so resolutely determined to tear down the things that we hold dear and that hold us together.

"Democrats and Republicans, I ask you to search your souls and answer these questions: Is the president's war on democracy in keeping with the Constitution?

"Were his words and insurrectionary mob a high crime and a misdemeanor? Do we not have a duty to our oath to do all we constitutionally can to protect our nation and our democracy from the appetites and ambitions of a man who has self-evidently demonstrated that he is a vital threat to liberty, to self-government and to the rule of law?”

At least five Republicans have said they would join Democrats in voting for an article of impeachment of inciting an insurrection just seven days before he is due to leave office and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20.

If the House approves it, Mr Trump would become the first president impeached twice.

A majority vote in the House to impeach would trigger a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, although it was unclear whether such a trial would take place in time to expel Mr Trump from office.

Democrats are keen to force Mr Trump out of the White House as soon as possible. However, it emerged later on Wednesday that the Senate’s Republican Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, has told his Democrat counterpart Chuck Schumer he is not willing to bring the chamber into emergency session to consider removing Mr Trump from office.

Pro-Trump supporters storm US Capitol

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As lawmakers debated the matter, National Guard troops and police were stationed around the Capitol to provide security.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat, said party members intended to send the impeachment charge, once approved, to the Senate "as soon as possible".

 The debate follows Mr Trump’s encouragement to a mob of loyalists to "fight like hell" against election results just before they stormed the US Capitol in a deadly siege.

"We are debating this historic measure at a crime scene," said Jim McGovern, a Democratic Representative from Massachusetts. 

While Mr Trump's first impeachment in 2019 brought no Republican votes in the House, a small but significant number of leaders and lawmakers are breaking with the party to join Democrats, saying the President violated his oath to protect and defend US democracy.

Mr Trump, who would become the only U.S. president twice impeached, faces a single charge of "incitement of insurrection."  

The stunning collapse of Mr Trump's final days in office, against alarming warnings of more violence ahead by his followers, leaves the nation at an uneasy and unfamiliar juncture before Mr Biden is inaugurated January 20.  

House Votes On Articles Of Impeachment Against President Trump
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wears a protective mask while arriving to the US Capitol on Wednesday
Getty Images

The four-page impeachment resolution relies on Mr Trump's own incendiary rhetoric and falsehoods he has spread about Mr Biden's election victory, in building its case for high crimes and misdemeanours as demanded in the Constitution.

They include his comments at a White House rally on the day of the attack on the Capitol, when he told supporters: "We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”

Mr Trump took no responsibility for the riot, suggesting it was the drive to oust him rather than his actions around the bloody riot that was dividing the country.

"To continue on this path, I think it's causing tremendous danger to our country, and it's causing tremendous anger," Mr Trump said on Tuesday in his first remarks to reporters since last week's violence.  

A Capitol police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies. Lawmakers had to scramble for safety and hide as rioters took control of the Capitol and delayed by hours the last step in finalising Mr Biden's victory.

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