Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are moving swiftly to remove President Donald Trump from office in the waning days of his presidency.
On Monday, House Democrats brought a resolution to the floor calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to declare Trump unfit for office and immediately remove him from the White House.
The motion to pass the measure by unanimous consent was stymied by Republican objections, putting off any action until Tuesday, when it is expected to easily pass. CNN reported Monday evening that Pence has indicated he will not invoke the 25th Amendment.
All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation have expressed support for swiftly removing the president from office ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
The House is expected to return Tuesday morning for further consideration of the resolution, and possibly other measures, which include a potential resolution calling on the expulsion of members of Congress who tried to overturn the results of the November election and incite a riot.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called lawmakers back to Washington, D.C., for a roll call vote on the measure Tuesday. Pelosi has said after the resolution is passed, she will give Pence 24 hours to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office.
If the vice president does not act, the Speaker of the House has signaled she will push ahead with impeaching Trump, setting up a vote for Wednesday.
Democrat Rep. Peter Welch, Vermont’s lone member of the House of Representatives, said in an interview Monday evening that he will be traveling back to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday to vote in favor of the resolution.
On Monday afternoon,Welch was self-isolating at his Vermont home and is being retested for the coronavirus after being involved in a potential “super spreader” event when hundreds of House members sheltered in a secure location during the siege, according to a report from VPR’s Bob Kinzel.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., announced Monday that she has tested positive for Covid-19. Coleman said she believes she was exposed to the virus during the siege of the U.S. Capitol. A number of House members who were sheltering in a bunker did not wear masks.
Welch told VTDigger Monday that he has no Covid-19 symptoms and that he feels “great.”
The congressman laid out three potential outcomes before Jan. 20: the top Republicans in Congress could pressure Trump to resign, Pence could invoke the 25th Amendment, or the House could impeach the president.
Welch said his preference would be for Trump to resign or for Pence to remove him from office because it would show an “acceptance of responsibility.”
Those two options are very unlikely, though, and so the House will move forward with an impeachment vote, he said.
“I think it’s necessary for us to proceed [with impeachment],” Welch said. “The issue here is accountability and the acceptance of responsibility, and ideally Trump would accept some responsibility, however unlikely.”
“I fully expect the final remedy will be the House of Representatives voting on impeachment,” he said.
Trump is being charged with one article of impeachment: “incitement of insurrection.”
“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power and imperiled a coordinate branch of government. He thereby betrayed his trust as president to the manifest injury of the people of the United States,” the authors of the article of impeachment wrote.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who is poised to become the senate president pro tempore and third in line to the presidency, said Monday Trump’s crimes are far more extensive than anything former President Richard Nixon did. Nixon was persuaded to resign before an impeachment vote.
“If we do nothing, what we’re saying to future autocrats is ‘do whatever you want,’” Leahy said.
The senior Vermont senator said even if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., stalls the impeachment process until after Biden’s inauguration, the U.S. Senate should still convict Trump.
“We can do it even after Trump leaves and it could be done in a way that he would not be able to hold office again,” Leahy said.
If the House successfully votes to charge Trump this week, it would be the second time the lower chamber has impeached the president during his four-year term.
In December 2019, the House impeached the president for allegedly abusing the power of the White House to pressure Ukraine into investigating the family of President-elect Joe Biden. The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate did not find Trump guilty of the charge.
In the days since a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, ransacking the halls of Congress, calls to remove the president from office have strengthened as Trump has been banned from Twitter to stem his ability to incite more unrest in the runup to Biden’s inauguration.
The siege last Wednesday, which was a bid to stop lawmakers from certifying the Electoral College votes from the November election, has resulted in the deaths of five people and many arrests.
Democrats and some Republicans have put the blame squarely on Trump for the events.
Trump supporters have signaled last week was just the beginning, as armed defenders of the president are planning to come out in full force in the days prior Jan. 20, holding rallies in every capital across the U.S.
Fifteen thousand armed National Guard members will be present in Washington, D.C., for Biden’s inauguration to ensure public safety.
On Friday, the Vermont Legislature approved a tri-partisan resolution calling on Trump to be removed from office. A number of Vermont Republicans and national Republicans have echoed the sentiment that while they do not condone Trump’s actions or the riots in Washington, D.C., they do not see the point in trying to remove the president when he will leave the White House on Jan. 20.
In response to arguments that the president should not be impeached in the remaining nine days of his tenure, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tweeted on Jan. 8, “Precedent. It must be made clear that no president, now or in the future, can lead an insurrection against the U.S. government.”
