Live Updates: The House, With Some G.O.P. Support, Votes to Impeach Trump a Historic

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Live Updates: The House, With Some G.O.P. Support, Votes to Impeach Trump a Historic Second
By: New York Times - 01-13-21
Re: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01...gtype=Homepage

Charge Is "Incitement of Insurrection"
Vote count: 2nd Impeachment of Donald J. Trump
232 YES with 197 NO

The House voted on an article of impeachment that accuses President Trump of “incitement of insurrection,” and 10 Republicans supported the move. Senator Mitch McConnell said he would not agree to use emergency powers to bring the Senate back into session for a trial before Jan. 19.

The House, with some G.O.P. support, impeaches Trump for ‘incitement of insurrection,’ setting up a Senate trial.

The House on Wednesday impeached President Trump for inciting a violent insurrection against the United States government, as 10 members of the president’s party joined Democrats to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors for an unprecedented second time.

Reconvening under the threat of continued violence and the protection of thousands of National Guard troops, the House was determined to hold Mr. Trump to account just one week before he was to leave office. At issue was his role in encouraging a mob that attacked the Capitol one week ago while Congress met to affirm President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, forcing lawmakers to flee for their lives in a deadly rampage.

The House adopted a single article of impeachment, voting 232 to 197 to charge Mr. Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” and requesting his immediate removal from office and disqualification from ever holding one again.

Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach: Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the party’s No. 3 leader in the House; Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington; John Katko of New York; Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; Fred Upton of Michigan; Dan Newhouse of Washington; Peter Meijer of Michigan; Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio; David Valadao of California and Tom Rice of South Carolina.

The defections were a remarkable break from the head of the party by Republicans, who voted unanimously against impeaching Mr. Trump just over a year ago.

The vote set the stage for the second Senate trial of Mr. Trump in a year, though senators appeared unlikely to convene to sit in judgment before Jan. 20, when Mr. Biden will take the oath of office. The last proceeding, over Mr. Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine to smear Mr. Biden, was a partisan affair.

This time, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, was said to support the effort as a means of purging his party of Mr. Trump, setting up a political and constitutional showdown that could shape the course of American politics when the nation remains dangerously divided.

In a note to Republican colleagues on Wednesday, Mr. McConnell did not deny that he backed the impeachment push, but he said that he had “not made a final decision on how I will vote, and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate.”

Mr. Trump showed no contrition for his actions. But in the run-up to the vote on Wednesday, he issued a statement urging his supporters to remain peaceful as federal authorities warned of a nationwide wave of violence surrounding Mr. Biden’s inauguration.

“There must be no violence, no lawbreaking and no vandalism of any kind,” the president said in a statement that was read by Republicans from the House floor. “That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on all Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers.”

The House’s vote was historic. Only two other presidents have been impeached; none has been impeached twice, by such a large bipartisan margin, or so close to leaving office.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California implored colleagues before the vote to embrace “a constitutional remedy that will ensure that the Republic will be safe from this man who is so resolutely determined to tear down the things that we hold dear and that hold us together.”

“He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love,” she said, adding later, “It gives me no pleasure to say this — it breaks my heart.”

Republicans, who stood unanimously behind Mr. Trump in 2019 during his first impeachment, were split over the charge this time.

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, spoke out against impeachment, warning that it would “further fan the flames of partisan division.” But he also pinned blame on Mr. Trump for the attack and batted down false suggestions from some of his colleagues that antifa had actually been responsible for the siege, not loyalists to Mr. Trump. He proposed censuring the president instead of impeaching him.

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”

Democrats and some Republicans had tried — briefly — to take another course. They urged Mr. Trump to resign voluntarily and voted late Tuesday to call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to wrest the powers of the presidency from Mr. Trump for the remainder of his term. Mr. Trump refused, and so did Mr. Pence.

As the House voted Wednesday on whether to formally charge President Trump with inciting violence against the government of the United States, 10 Republicans cast their votes in favor.

The vote came exactly one week after the Capitol was breached by an angry mob of Trump loyalists.

In 2019, not a single Republican voted in favor of impeachment. House Republican leaders said they would not formally lobby members of the party against voting to impeach the president this time.

Representative John Katko of New York was the first Republican to publicly announce that he would back the impeachment proceedings. Not holding the president accountable for his actions would be “a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” he said.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, said on Tuesday evening that she would vote to impeach, citing the president’s role in an insurrection that caused “death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.”

Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, joined his Republican colleagues on Tuesday evening, saying the nation was in uncharted waters. He said that Mr. Trump “encouraged an angry mob to storm the United States Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes.”

Representative Fred Upton of Michigan issued a statement saying that he would vote to impeach after Mr. Trump “expressed no regrets” for what had happened at the Capitol.

Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington State issued a statement saying, “The president’s offenses, in my reading of the Constitution, were impeachable based on the indisputable evidence we already have.” (An earlier version of this item incorrectly stated which state Ms. Herrera Beutler represents.)

Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington announced that he was backing impeachment, attacking his party’s core argument, that the process was being rushed. “I will not use process as an excuse,” he said during the impeachment debate, to cheers and applause from Democrats. Mr. Newhouse also offered a mea culpa, chiding himself and other Republicans for “not speaking out sooner” against the president.

Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan said that Mr. Trump had “betrayed his oath of office by seeking to undermine our constitutional process, and he bears responsibility for inciting the insurrection we suffered last week.”

Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio said Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers in the House and Senate “had their lives put in grave danger as a result of the president’s actions,” adding, “When I consider the full scope of events leading up to Jan. 6 including the president’s lack of response as the United States Capitol was under attack, I am compelled to support impeachment.”

Representatives Tom Rice of South Carolina and David Valadao of California also voted for impeachment.