WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday the House will proceed with legislation to impeach President Trump, calling him a threat to democracy after the deadly assault on the Capitol.
Ms. Pelosi (D., Calif.) made the announcement in a letter to colleagues. She said the House will act with urgency with just days remaining before Mr. Trump is scheduled to leave office on Jan. 20.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she said.
“The horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
Ms. Pelosi said that first the House will try to force Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to oust Mr. Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment.
House leaders will work to pass legislation on Monday to do that. If it is blocked by Republicans, the House will convene for a full vote Tuesday.
Ms. Pelosi said the resolution calls on Mr. Pence “to convene and mobilize the Cabinet to activate the 25th Amendment to declare the President incapable of executing the duties of his office.”
Mr. Pence is not expected to take the lead in forcing out Mr. Trump, though talk has been circulating about the 25th Amendment option for days.
Next, the House would move to consider the articles of impeachment, Ms. Pelosi said.
The day for an impeachment vote was not set.
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, said “it may be Tuesday, Wednesday before the action is taken, but I think it will be taken this week.”
Mr. Clyburn suggested if the House does vote to impeach, Ms. Pelosi might hold the charges — known as articles of impeachment — until after Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office.
“Let’s give president-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” Mr. Clyburn said. “And maybe we will send the articles some time after that.”
Another idea being considered is to have a separate vote that would prevent Mr. Trump from ever holding office again.
That could only need a simple majority vote of 51 senators, unlike impeachment, in which two-thirds of the 100-member Senate must support a conviction.
Sen. Christopher Coons (D., Del.), a Biden ally, echoed the president-elect’s statement last week that the decision on whether to impeach Mr. Trump is up to Congress.
Mr. Trump “has lost the right to be President,” Mr. Coons said on CBS’ Face the Nation, describing the Wednesday attack on the Capitol as an “attempted coup.”
Mr. Coons said the most important thing that Mr. Trump and his Republican supporters in Congress can do right now is to stop spreading the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen and work to persuade Trump supporters that Mr. Biden is the duly-elected president.
Most Republicans have said little about what should be the consequences of the riot and Mr. Trump’s role in inciting it.
But some have joined Democrats in calling for Mr. Trump to resign.
“I think, at this point, with just a few days left, it’s the best path forward, the best way to get this person in the rearview mirror for us,” Sen. Patrick Toomey (R., Pa.) said on CNN’s State of the Union when asked whether Mr. Trump should step down.
“That could happen immediately. I’m not optimistic it will,” he said. “But I do think that would be the best way forward.”
Mr. Toomey joined Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who called for Mr. Trump to “resign and go away as soon as possible.” She told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Mr. Trump “needs to get out.”
Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) warned Mr. Trump to be “very careful” in in the next week-and-a-half.
Mr. Toomey has said he believes Mr. Trump has committed impeachable offenses, but the senator shied away from pushing impeachment as the best possible option forward, noting that only 10 days remained in Mr. Trump’s term.
On NBC’s Meet the Press, Mr. Toomey said his GOP colleagues who helped perpetuate Mr. Trump’s claims of voter fraud would have “a lot of soul-searching to do.”
“The problem is they were complicit in the big lie, this lie that Donald Trump won the election in a landslide and it was all stolen,” said Mr. Toomey, who is not running for re-election.
“They compounded that with this notion that somehow this could all be reversed in the final moments of the congressional proceedings. … That’s going to haunt them for a very long time.”
Pressed on why he was surprised that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric had fueled such violence, Mr. Toomey said the President’s actions were “wildly different from (his) offensive tweets” and that he had never thought he should play the role of the editor of Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed.
The senator said he did not regret voting for Mr. Trump and instead accused the Democratic Party of being so radicalized that voters could only make the “rational decision” to cast their ballots for Mr. Trump.
“Nobody could’ve anticipated what has happened, I don’t think, subsequent to the election,” Mr. Toomey said.
The effort by Democrats to stamp Mr. Trump’s presidential record — for the second time and days before his term ends — with the indelible mark of impeachment has advanced rapidly since the riot at the Capitol.
The articles, if passed by the House, could then be transmitted to the Senate for a trial, with senators acting as jurors who would ultimately vote on whether to acquit or convict Mr. Trump.
It would be the first time a U.S. president has been impeached twice.
Some Republicans have said impeachment would be divisive.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said that instead of coming together, Democrats want to “talk about ridiculous things like ‘Let’s impeach a president’ who isn’t even going to be in office in about nine days.”
Mr. Blunt said Mr. Trump’s actions “were clearly reckless,” but “my personal view is that the President touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again.”
Still, some Republicans might be supportive of the developing push for impeachment.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said he would take a look at any articles that the House sends over.
Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic, said he will “vote the right way” if the matter is put in front of him.
“I honestly don’t think impeachment is the smart move because I think it victimizes Donald Trump again,” Mr. Kinzinger said.
First Published January 11, 2021, 5:22 a.m.
