From our correspondent
WASHINGTON – Republicans make a wall. Nancy Pelosi’s first attempt failed. Today, Monday 11 January, the Speaker of the House has just presented one motion urging Vice President Mike Pence to enforce the 25th Amendment to the Constitution which allows the removal of the president if “he is no longer able to perform his duties”.
Pelosi was aiming for the full consent of the House, to give the appeal a sense of the bipartisan emergency, after the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6 last. But the Republicans opposed it and so the document will now be put to a vote. Pence has not yet arrived. According to the American media, the number two of the White House is still tormented by doubts. As the hours pass, however, he will have to take a stand, one way or the other. Chances are he still wants to watch Donald Trump’s next moves. Tomorrow, Tuesday 12, the president will hold a rally in the Alamo, a town a few kilometers from McAllen, on the border with Texas (not to be confused with Davy Crockett’s Fort Alamo which is located in San Antonio, a little further north). Another “horror show” is expected.
In parallel Pelosi starts the impeachment procedure in the afternoon. The text is signed by almost all Democrats, 210 out of 222. It is a short resolution, four pages, including the formal preamble. The resolution accuses the outgoing president of “Incitement to insurrection” and also calls for a ban from public office, since the president could also pose a threat to the future.
The accusation is contained in a single article: “Incitement to Insurrection”. Here are the key steps. «On January 6, 2021 … just before the start of the joint session (in Congress ed), President Trump addressed a crowd of his political supporters, not far away. Here he repeated false claims: “we won the elections and we won them by avalanche”. He also made statements that encouraged – with obvious results – illegal action against the Capitol. Urged on by President Trump, a mass of people illegally breached the building, injured members of the police, threatened members of Congress and the vice president.
The impeachment deed treats the events of January 6 as the consequence of Trump’s long campaign to de-legitimize the election result.
The papers mention, among other things, the phone call to the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger. Undue pressure to subvert the result in that state: “Find me the votes.” The conclusion is very hard: «With all this, President Trump has seriously damaged the security of the United States, its institutions and its government. He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of powers … He therefore betrayed the trust he has as president, with evident damage to the people of the United States ».
The request for impeachment should be voted by the House on Wednesday 13 January: it will pass, because the simple majority that is in the hands of the progressives is sufficient. But it is not yet clear how this will proceed.
The leader of the Democrats, Jim Clyburn, has proposed to transmit the documents to the Senate only in 100 days, in order to allow the new president Joe Biden to have the green light for the appointments of his government and to develop the first measures. But many deputies are against it: an immediate signal must be given to the country.
In any case, it is up to the Senate to decide whether to condemn Trump, removing him from the White House and also preventing him – as we said above – from running for office in the future. However, a two-thirds quorum is needed. Republicans are also divided. The outgoing president still seems to be able to count on sufficient consensus to save him.
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