Nancy Pelosi ready to start second impeachment against Donald Trump; Mike Pence ‘to attend’ Joe Biden’s inauguration
The Democrats are forging ahead with plans to impeach Donald Trump, while Mike Pence ‘will attend’ Joe Biden’s inauguration.
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US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will push ahead with efforts to remove President Donald Trump from office during the final days of his administration after his supporters’ violent attack on the Capitol.
Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, said there would be a resolution in the House of Representatives on Monday local time calling for the cabinet to remove Trump as unfit for office under the constitution’s 25th amendment.
If Vice President Mike Pence does not agree, “we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation” to the floor of the House of Representatives, Pelosi said.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she said.
“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.”
Trump was already impeached once by the Democratic-controlled House – in December 2019 for pressuring the leader of Ukraine to dig up political dirt on Joe Biden.
He was acquitted by the Republican-majority Senate.
Though time is running short, Democrats likely have the votes in the House to impeach Trump again and could even draw some Republican support for the move.
But they are unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump in the 100-member Senate and remove him from office.
PENCE TO ATTEND BIDEN’S INAUGURATION
Mike Pence will attend Joe Biden’s upcoming inauguration, multiple media reports say, becoming the latest longtime loyalist to abandon an increasingly isolated President.
Relations between Trump and the Vice President – previously one of the mercurial president’s staunchest defenders – have nosedived since Wednesday, when the vice president formally announced Biden’s victory in November’s election.
The men have not spoken after the president’s supporters violently stormed the Capitol on Wednesday leaving five dead, according to the US media
Multiple media reports on Saturday cited senior administration officials as saying that Pence – who was forced to take shelter from the intruders during the riot – had decided to attend Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
The president-elect earlier in the week said Pence would be welcome at his formal swearing-in, due to take place in a scaled-down format due to the coronavirus.
“I think it’s important that as much as we can stick to what have been the historical precedents of how an administration changes should be maintained,” Biden told reporters.
“We’d be honoured to have him there, and to move forward in the transition.”
In his final tweet before being removed from Twitter on Friday, Trump said he would not attend the inauguration.
Meanwhile, Twitter has confirmed it prevented “Hang Mike Pence” from trending during the Capitol Hill riot.
Rioters were videoed chanting the phrase while storming the Capitol, while Reuters journalist Jim Bourg said he heard multiple rioters call for Pence to be executed.
Mr Pence refused demands from the President to block the confirmation of his election loss.
Several terrorists were pictured with handcuffs in what was seen as preparation to abduct politicians or officials.
A noose was erected on makeshift gallows in front of the Capitol.
ACTING PM KNOCKS TWITTER’S TRUMP BAN
Australia’s acting prime minister says he “doesn’t support censorship” as multiple social media giants remove Donald Trump from their platforms.
Twitter permanently removed Mr Trump’s account, followed by 88 million users, after Thursday’s deadly coup attempt on Capitol Hill.
Mr Trump has been accused of inciting the riots via social media as he claimed, without evidence, November’s US election result was rigged.
Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack described Mr Trump’s refusal to accept the election result as “unfortunate” but said he did not support deleting the President’s accounts.
“I don’t believe in that sort of censorship. There have been a lot of people who have said and done a lot of things on Twitter previously who haven’t received that sort of condemnation or indeed censorship,” he told ABC Radio today.
Although the decision to ban Mr Trump was a matter for Twitter, the platform had a history of allowing controversial speech, Mr McCormack said.
“They’ve got a business to run and they’ve made that decision. That’s up to them and people will use that platform if they feel they need to,” he said.
“There are a lot of things said and done on Twitter that wouldn’t be said on other social media platforms.
“I’m on all our social media platforms and the criticism you cop on Twitter is probably far in excess of what you cop on other social media platforms.”
NEW VIDEO SHOWS COP BEATEN BY TRUMP MOB
More shocking footage has emerged from the riots at the Capitol building in Washington last week showing an officer being beaten by Trump supporters.
Insurrectionists breaking into the building via a side entrance are filmed trampling a police officer face down on the ground.
The mob use objects to bludgeon the police officer and drag his limp body down a flight of stairs as his colleagues desperately try to pull him back.
In the background someone can be heard shouting: “Get that motherf***** out of there! Take him out!”
It is not clear whether the police officer is Officer Brian Sicknick, who died during the riots after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.
TRUMP TO BLAME FOR CHAOS, VIOLENCE: POLL
A majority of Americans believe Donald Trump is to blame for the violent breach of the US Capitol that occurred during a joint session as Congress was formalising Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
According to a new poll conducted by ABC News/Ipsos, 67 per cent of respondents said the US President is at fault, including 52 per cent who believe he should shoulder the majority of the responsibility for the storming of the government building.
Only 15 per cent said he bears none of the blame.
A majority said Mr Trump should be removed from office before his term ends, before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20.
The poll showed that Democrats and independents support his immediate removal with only 13 per cent of Republicans supporting the move.
In the aftermath of the riot on Capitol Hill, which saw five dead including a Capitol police officer, Mr Trump is facing pressure to resign.
His Cabinet have discussed invoking the 25th Amendment, which states that if the President is unable to do his job, the Vice President takes his place.
Mr Trump is also facing a second impeachment with charges expected to be introduced this week.
But according to Bloomberg, Mr Trump is confident Vice President Mike Pence and members of his cabinet won’t remove him.
Mr Trump plans to end his final 10 days in office highlighting what he considers to be his biggest achievements, including paying a visit to his border wall with Mexico, according to a source.
ARNOLD COMPARES CAPITOL SIEGE TO NAZI ATTACK
Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke out Sunday on the deadly US Capitol riot carried out by supporters of President Trump, likening it to the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom of Nazi Germany.
The Hollywood star and former Republican governor of California opened a nearly eight-minute Twitter video by recounting his childhood in the shadow of World War II.
“I grew up in Austria. I am very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass” said Schwarzenegger, 73. “It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys.
“Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States,” he continued. “The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol. But the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol; they shattered the ideals we took for granted.”
My message to my fellow Americans and friends around the world following this week's attack on the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/blOy35LWJ5
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) January 10, 2021
The storming of the Capitol on Wednesday shortly followed a rally-style speech in which Mr Trump urged his supporters to “fight like hell” against the certification of the 2020 presidential election results in favour of political rival Joe Biden, unfolding at the time in Congress.
The raid, which left five people dead including a Capitol Police officer, delayed, but did not prevent the certification process.
Schwarzenegger — who succeeded Mr Trump as the host of NBC reality competition show The Apprentice — weighed in on Republican politicians who backed the president in voting to overturn the election results, even after the riot.
“I will remind them of what Teddy Roosevelt said: ‘Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president,’” said Schwarzenegger. “They are complicit with those who carried the flag of self-righteous insurrection into the Capitol.”
Despite the horror of the riot and its aftermath, Schwarzenegger concluded the video on an optimistic note, vowing that American democracy would weather the storm.
To illustrate the point, Schwarzenegger held up the blade from his 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian.
“The more you temper a sword, the stronger it becomes,” he said. “Our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes.”
CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER TAKES OWN LIFE: REPORTS
A veteran US Capitol Police officer has died by suicide, authorities and reports said on Sunday, a further blow to a department already reeling from the death of a member during last week’s riot.
According to the New York Post, Officer Howard Liebengood, 51, died on Saturday while off-duty, the department announced in a statement.
“He was assigned to the Senate Division, and has been with the Department since April 2005,” the statement read.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends, and colleagues.
“We ask that his family, and other USCP officers’ and their families’ privacy be respected during this profoundly difficult time.”
The department did not disclose the circumstances of officer Liebengood’s death, but outlets and reporters including Jake Sherman, of Punchbowl News, said that the lawman took his own life, citing sources.
It was not immediately clear what spurred the act, which occurred three days after the riots.
CAPITOL RIOTERS ARRESTED
Federal authorities in the US have arrested two of the alleged Capitol rioters whose images went viral for their part in the siege of the building.
Adam Johnson, 36, of Parrish, Florida, who was pictured carrying Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern through the halls, is being held in Pinellas County Jail and pending charges, according to the United States Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia.
The US Attorney’s office also arrested Jacob Anthony Chansley, known as “Jake Angeli,” on Saturday.
Investigators said he was the shirtless man seen in viral photos of the siege dressed in horns, a bearskin headdress with red, white and blue face paint and carrying a spear with an American flag tied below the blade.
Chansley made his way to the dais of the Senate chamber during the siege where he was photographed by other rioters, according to investigators.
Chansley voluntarily called the FBI, according to the US Attorney’s office.
“Chansley stated that he came as a part of a group effort, with other ‘patriots’ from Arizona, at the request of the President that all ‘patriots’ come to D.C. on January 6, 2021,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Investigators said he was charged with “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds”.
TWITTER REMOVES TRUMP PERMANENTLY
It comes as Donald Trump faces being silenced on two fronts after Twitter permanently suspended and removed his account yesterday and his political enemies pushed forward with plans for a second impeachment.
The surprise move by Twitter — effectively a ban on his account — followed a 12-hour suspension issued days earlier when he posted a video telling rioters storming Washington’s Capitol building, “we love you, you’re very special”.
It also comes just one day after Facebook suspended Mr Trump’s page for the remainder of his presidency.
In a statement, Twitter said it had frozen Mr Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” and under its policies against the “glorification” of violence.
“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter rules would potentially result in this very course of action,” the company said.
“Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly.
“However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things.”
Mr Trump made an attempt to tweet from the official POTUS Twitter account and from a second Team Trump account after the ban but his messages were quickly removed.
In one of Mr Trump’s final tweets to his more than 88 million followers, he warned his supporters would “not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form” and announced that he would not be attending President Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The second announcement was welcomed by his successor.
“It’s a good thing, him not showing up,” Mr Biden said yesterday, adding it was “one of the few things he and I have ever agreed on”.
“He exceeded even my worst notions about him. He’s been an embarrassment to the country.”
With the backlash building over Mr Trump’s incitement of the mob that overran the US Capitol in riots that have caused at least five deaths, Republicans are now among those calling on Mr Trump to leave office immediately, 10 days ahead of Mr Biden’s inauguration.
“I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage,” said Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski.
“I think he should leave. He’s not going to appear at the inauguration. He hasn’t been focused on what is going on with COVID. He’s either been golfing or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming and throwing every single person who has been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the Vice President.
“He doesn’t want to stay there. He only wants to stay there for the title. He only wants to stay there for his ego. He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing a good thing,”
Some 120 Democrats also signed an open letter yesterday stating plans to impeach him as soon as Monday for “incitement of insurrection”.
Mr Biden earlier said “the quickest” way to remove Mr Trump would be through his swearing-in on January 20, indicating he doesn’t support another impeachment.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “If the President does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action”.
The White House decried the plan, which would be the first time in history a president has been impeached twice.
“As President Trump said yesterday, this is a time for healing and unity as one Nation,” said spokesman Judd Deere.
“A politically motivated impeachment against a President with 12 days remaining in his term will only serve to further divide our great country.”
At a rally ahead of Wednesday’s breach of Congress by Trump supporters, the President encouraged a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands to march on the Capitol to protest the certification of Mr Biden’s election win, which began shortly after he spoke.
“We’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you,” he said to the crowd.
“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
It came after Mrs Pelosi said she had spoken to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about preventing the “unhinged” president from initiating military actions or a nuclear strike.
Mrs Pelosi said that she spoke with General Mark Milley “to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.”
“This unhinged President could not be more dangerous,” she said.
She and Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer also repeated their call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to force Mr Trump from office.
– with Zoe Smith, Finn McHugh
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Originally published as Nancy Pelosi ready to start second impeachment against Donald Trump; Mike Pence ‘to attend’ Joe Biden’s inauguration
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