Donald Trump: Democrats will continue to push for impeachment - even after president leaves White House
Growing numbers of Republicans and Democrats want to ensure he can never relaunch his political career, writes Sky's Adam Boulton.
Tuesday 12 January 2021 16:07, UK
Democrats in the US Congress have published an article impeaching President Donald John Trump for "high crimes and misdemeanours".
A majority in the House of Representatives is set to send Mr Trump for trial in the Senate in a vote on Wednesday - unless he resigns before then.
Or Vice President Mike Pence, and a majority of the cabinet, agree by Tuesday that the president is unfit to stay in office under the 25th amendment.
Both seem unlikely, so Mr Trump looks set to go in the history books as the only president to be impeached twice.
The article of impeachment charged Mr Trump with "incitement of insurrection". It states that the US Constitution prohibits any person who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the United States from "holding any office".
The most serious charge is that Mr Trump engaged in "high crimes and misdemeanours" - a phrase from section four, article two of the Constitution - by inciting violence against the government.
Then it lists specific examples, drawing first on the claims made by Mr Trump since he lost the election last November.
In the months preceding the Congress joint session to certify the electoral college, President Trump repeatedly issued false statements, asserting the election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people.
These are the claims which so inflamed Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, that he warned if they were allowed to stand, American democracy would enter a "death spiral".
The impeachment article then moves on to the events of that day, 6 January, when rioters attacked the Congress building.
It starts with the "Save America" rally the president staged near the White House, directly linking him to the violence which followed.
President Trump addressed a crowd at The Ellipse in Washington DC and reiterated false election claims when he said, "we won this election, and we won it by a landslide".
He also wilfully made statements that, in context, encouraged - and foreseeably resulted in - lawless action at the US Capitol such as, "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore".
Taped evidence emerged that Mr Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani were phoning senators to block certification of the result, even while protesters, later described by the president as "special", were vandalising Congress and assaulting the police.
Some congressmen and women insisted that this Mafia-don behaviour should be included in the indictment.
These prior efforts included a phone call on 2 January during which President Trump urged the Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to overturn the state's presidential election results.
He threatened Mr Raffensberger when he insisted there was nothing he could do.
The concluding paragraph of the article of impeachment is damning.
"Wherefore, Donald John Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office… [he] thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States."
It seems unlikely that any trial will go ahead before Joe Biden is sworn in as president.
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Senate business managers say the first possible date would be inauguration day itself.
Instead, if passed, the House may delay official presentation of the resolution for some months to allow the new administration to get established.
A trial later this year seems likely, even after President Trump has stood down, because growing numbers of Republicans and Democrats would like to ensure that he can never relaunch his political career.