Republicans joined Democrats last night to charge President Trump with “incitement of insurrection”, passing his impeachment vote by 232-197. However, the trial will not happen till Trump leaves office. No President has ever been impeached twice before.
Last night, President Trump was impeached for a second time by Congress , with every Democrat voting in favor and 10 Republicans doing the same. This made it the most bipartisan vote in US history.
The Congress majority leader Mitch McConnell had said he would not bring the Senate back before January 19 – the day before President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration – meaning Trump would be out of office once he is charged.
He added: “I have 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.”
The leader of the pro-impeachment Republicans and daughter of Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, who hopes to become Leader of the House and take the Speaker’s chair from Nancy Pelosi, said: “He lit the flame on insurrection.”
But one Republican Senator went even further, saying in a fiery statement:
“Turning a blind eye to this brutal assault on our Republic is not an option.
“A vote against impeachment is a vote to validate this unacceptable violence we witnessed in our nation’s Capitol. It is also a vote to condone President Trump’s inaction. Our country needed a leader and President Trump failed to fulfill his oath of office.”
Pelosi also stated she was “saddened and heartbroken” at having to sign the document.
The few political allies that the President had left refused to vote the articles of impeachment through, branding them “flawed”, with some saying that such an important vote shouldn’t be rushed.
A number of them suggested an alternative to impeachment, in the form of either launching a 9/11-style commission that they said would be more suitable (given that the President is leaving office soon) or censuring him.
A few Senators observed that impeaching Trump would turn him into a “martyr” and embolden his MAGA movement, rather than making it disappear.
