Washington: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has spoken to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about preventing President Donald Trump from initiating military actions or a nuclear strike.
Pelosi said in a statement to colleagues 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”.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tells the press that if Mike Pence doesn’t seek to remove Donald Trump from office, she will seek to impeach him again. Credit:AP
She said, the situation of “this unhinged President could not be more dangerous”.
Pelosi is meeting with the House Democratic caucus on Saturday AEDT to consider impeachment proceedings against the President.
She and Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer have called on Vice-President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to to force Trump from office. It’s a process for removing the president and installing the vice-president to take over.
Trump is set to leave on January 20 when Democrat Joe Biden is to be inaugurated.
Democrats are discussing whether to act quickly to impeach Trump as soon as next week if his Cabinet doesn’t first try to remove him after he encouraged loyalists who ransacked the Capitol in a siege that has left five people dead.
The articles are expected to be introduced on Monday, with a vote as soon as Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the planning and granted anonymity to discuss it.
If Trump were to be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, he could be prevented from running again in 2024 or ever holding the presidency again. Trump would be only the president to be twice impeached.
Donald Trump spoke at a rally of supporters before their assault on the US Capitol.Credit:AP
Five people are now dead from the violent melee, including a Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick. Pelosi said in a statement that Sicknick's death “reminds us of our obligation to those we serve: to protect our country from all threats foreign and domestic”.
She said those responsible for the officer's death “must be brought to justice”.
Although Trump has less than two weeks in his term, lawmakers and even some in his administration began discussing options for his removal on Wednesday afternoon as Trump first encouraged rally-goers near the White House to march on the Capitol, then refused to forcefully condemn the assault and appeared to excuse it.
Massachusetts Representative Katherine Clark, a member of House Democratic leadership, said procedural steps could allow lawmakers to move far more quickly than they did on Trump's impeachment last year.
Representative James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, said he could confirm that "we have had discussions about it and I would hope that the Speaker would move forward if the Vice-President refuses to do what he is required to do under the Constitution.” Clyburn told CNN: “Everyone knows that this President is deranged.”
One leading Republican critic of Trump, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, said he will “definitely consider” impeachment.
“The President has disregarded his oath of office,” Sasse told CBS' This Morning. He said what Trump did was “wicked” in inciting the mob. If the House impeaches, “I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move,” Sasse said.
Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer have called for Trump's Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to force Trump from office before Biden is inaugurated. Schumer said he and Pelosi tried to call Pence early on Thursday to discuss that option but were unable to connect with him.
Pelosi, during a new conference on Thursday, challenged several Cabinet members by name, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
“Do they stand by these actions?" Pelosi asked. "Are they ready to say that for the next 13 days this dangerous man can do further harm to our country?”
Most Democrats, and many Republicans, put the blame squarely on Trump after hundreds of protesters bearing Trump flags and clothing broke into the Capitol and caused destruction and mass evacuations. The President had urged his supporters to protest as Congress was counting the electoral votes that confirmed Biden’s win.
Pelosi said “a threshold was crossed of such magnitude” that Trump should not be allowed to make any decisions.
Three Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee began on Thursday to circulate articles of impeachment. Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of California wrote in the articles that Trump “willfully made statements that encouraged – and foreseeably resulted in – imminent lawless action at the Capitol”.
The House impeached Trump in 2019, but the Republican-led Senate acquitted him in early 2020.
Pence has not publicly addressed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment, but that possibility may have faded after two Cabinet members resigned on Thursday in protest after Trump egged on protesters who then mounted the deadly assault on the Capitol.
Yet senior Trump administration officials did raise the long-shot possibility as the chaos unfolded at the Capitol. Officials across the government went so far as to study up on the procedures for declaring Trump “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
No member of the Cabinet has publicly expressed support for the move, which would make Pence the acting president. But several were believed to be sympathetic to the notion, believing Trump is too volatile in his waning days.
While the House could quickly vote to impeach Trump, it is extremely unlikely that Congress could remove the President in the next 13 days. The Senate would have to receive the articles and then hold a trial and vote on them.
And even if it did so, the Republican Senate would be unlikely to vote to convict. But in one measure of the uncomfortable position that Trump’s goading of the mob had placed Republican lawmakers, there was a noteworthy lack of Republican statements attacking Democrats’ calls for his removal.
AP
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