WASHINGTON (AP) – Warnings flash, Democrats in Congress have drawn up plans to impeach President Donald Trump swiftly, demanding decisive, immediate action to ensure that an ‘unhinged’ commander in chief cannot contribute to the damage they say He has inflicted or even nuclear can ignite war in his last days in office.
As the country faces violent siege of the United States Capitol by Trump supporters, which left five dead, the crisis that appears to be one of the last acts of his presidency deepens like few other periods in the country’s history. With less than two weeks until he’s gone, the Democrats want him out – now – and he has few defenders standing up for him in his own Republican party.
“We need to take action,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday during a private conference with Democrats.
And a prominent Republican, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, told the Anchorage Daily News Trump just “needs to get out.”
The last days of Trump’s presidency are beginning to end chaotically as he accumulates in the White House, abandoned by many aides, top Republicans and cabinet members. After refusing to admit defeat in the November election, he has now pledged a smooth transfer of power when Democratic President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20. Yet he says he will not attend the inauguration. presidential censure since just after the civil war.
In Congress, where many have watched and harassed as the president breaks standards for four years and tests the crash barriers of democracy, Democrats are unwilling to take any more risks with just a few days to go. The chaos that broke out in the Capitol on Wednesday stunned the world and threatened the traditional peaceful transfer of power.
Pelosi said she was meeting with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley had spoken “to discuss available precautions to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes” for a nuclear war. She said Milley assured her that her long-term guarantees are in place.
The president alone has the authority to order the launch of a nuclear weapon, but a military commander could refuse the order if it were found to be illegal. Trump has not made such threats public, but officials warn of grave danger if the president is left unchecked.
“This unhinged president couldn’t be more dangerous,” said Pelosi of the current situation.
Biden, meanwhile, said he is focused on his job as he prepares to take office. When asked about impeachment, he said, “That’s a decision for Congress to make.”
Democrats consider lightning-fast action. A draft of their impeachment articles accuses Trump of abuse of power, saying he “made deliberate statements that encouraged – and predictably resulted in – impending lawless action in the Capitol,” said a person familiar with the details and given anonymity to discuss them.
The articles are expected to be introduced on Monday, with a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
If Trump were to be impeached by the House and condemned by the Senate, he could also be prevented from running for president again in 2024 or ever holding public office again. He would only be deposed as president twice. A person on the line said Pelosi was also discussing other ways Trump could be forced to resign.
Senators from a bipartisan group have convened their own call to consider options for congressional action, according to an assistant who granted anonymity to reveal the private discussions.
Not helpful, the White House said. Trump spokesman Judd Deere said, “A politically motivated impeachment against a president with 12 days to go will only serve to further divide our great country.”
Trump tweeted again Friday, his Twitter account was restored after a brief ban, and he lapsed into an aggressive statement that his supporters should not be “disrespected” after airing a quieter video on Thursday condemning the violence. By the evening, Twitter said it was permanently suspending him from its platform, citing “the risk of further incitement to violence.”
The soonest that the Senate could begin an impeachment process on the current calendar is on January 20, the day of the inauguration.
A Republican Senate conviction on this late date seems unlikely, although many Republicans remain silent on the issue as a sign of Trump’s destruction of the party.
An ally of Trump, Republican Minority Leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, like the White House, said that “impeaching the president with only 12 days to go will only divide our country more. “
McCarthy said he has contacted Biden and plans to speak with the Democratic president-elect about working together to “lower the temperature.”
But Murkowski said she wants Trump to resign now, not waiting for Biden to be sworn in on Jan. 20.
“I want him out,” she said in a telephone interview with the Anchorage newspaper.
Another leading Republican critic of Trump, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, said he “would certainly consider impeachment.”
Strong criticism of Trump, urging protesters to march to the Capitol, continued unabated.
“Every day he remains in office, he is a threat to the Republic,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
Schiff, who led Trump’s impeachment in 2019, said in a statement that Trump “ lit the fuse that exploded in the Capitol on Wednesday. ”
Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, tweeted that some people ask: Why would you impeach a president who has only been in office for a few days?
The answer: precedent. It must be made clear that no president, now or in the future, can lead an uprising against the US government, ”said Sanders.
Pelosi and Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer both had private talks with Biden late Friday.
They have called on Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to force Trump from office. It’s a process to remove the president and install the vice president to take over.
Pelosi later said that option remains on the table. But action by Pence or the cabinet now seems unlikely, especially after two top officials, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao suddenly resigned in the wake of the violence and would no longer be in the cabinet to advocate such a case. .
Trump had encouraged loyalists at a rally Wednesday at the White House to march to the Capitol, where Congress certified the electoral college of Biden’s election.
The House impeached Trump in 2019, but the Republican-led Senate acquitted him in early 2020.
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Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Alexandra Jaffe contributed to this report.