Breaking! Donald Trump Impeached For The Second Time

 US House of Representatives has impeached President Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection” at last week’s Capitol riot. 

 

 

News Rain Nigeria gathered that Donald Trump became the first US president in history to be impeached for a second time as the House of Representatives charged him with “incitement to insurrection” for his role in stirring up a mob of supporters that stormed the Capitol last week.

The House voted 232 to 197 on Wednesday in favour of impeaching the president after the riot that left five people dead, with 10 Republicans breaking ranks to join all Democrats in voting to charge Mr Trump.

Donald Trump Impeached For The Second Time

The single article of impeachment will be sent to the Senate, where the outgoing president faces a trial that will cast a shadow over the start of Joe Biden’s presidency and potentially prevent Mr Trump from running for office in the future.

“The president of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion, against our common country,” Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, said during a more than three-hour debate ahead of the vote.

“He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.”

The Republicans who voted to impeach Mr Trump were led by Liz Cheney, the third ranking House Republican, who rocked Washington on Tuesday night by announcing her intention to move against the president.

“The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Ms Cheney, the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, said in a statement. “Everything that followed was his doing.”

Although Ms Cheney did not speak during Wednesday’s debate, her remarks were quoted repeatedly by Democrats arguing in favour of impeachment.

While the number of Republicans voting to charge the president was relatively small, it was a marked increase compared with Mr Trump’s last impeachment, when no one from his party backed impeachment.

Ms Pelosi has not said when she will send the article to the Senate, but she appointed a slate of impeachment managers late on Tuesday, in a move that would allow her to proceed swiftly. The managers will prosecute the case against Mr Trump during a trial in the upper chamber.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, signaled that he did not intend to reconvene the upper chamber of Congress before January 19, one day before Mr Biden’s inauguration, setting the stage for a trial in the opening weeks of the next administration.

However, Mr McConnell held open the possibility that he might vote to convict the president at his trial. “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,” he wrote in a letter to Republican senators on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, is one of three members of the president’s cabinet to have resigned in recent days over his handling of the Capitol riots.

Kevin McCarthy, the House’s top Republican, said in Wednesday’s debate that Mr Trump “bears responsibility” for last week’s “attack on Congress by mob rioters”, adding: “He should have immediately denounced the[m] when he saw what was unfolding.”

But Mr McCarthy opposed impeachment, criticising the “short time-frame” and warning that the process would “further divide the nation”.

Members of the National Guard were deployed to the US Capitol on Wednesday ahead of the impeachment vote and are expected to support the police until Mr Biden’s inauguration.

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Trump, who last week was banned from Twitter, responded to reports of further demonstrations by urging “that there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind”.

“That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers,” Mr Trump added.