- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said President Donald Trump had incited ‘sedition’ against the United States and demanded the president’s removal from office
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a statement calling for swift action on the 25th Amendment while also leveling the threat of a second impeachment
- Both Democrat leaders called VP Mike Pence to demand Trump’s removal from office – but were put on hold
- Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory was certified by Pence at 3.41am, ending a nearly 15-hour saga
- Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger posted a video to Twitter in which he called for Trump to be removed from office ‘for the sake of our Democracy’
- Former Attorney General Bill Barr said ‘orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable’
- AOC says Cabinet should use 25th Amendment and Congress should impeach – and wants Republican inciters expelled from House and Senate
- Trump finally promised an ‘orderly transition’ on January 20 but maintained his false claims of election fraud
- The president had incited his supporters to storm the Capitol, forcing a halt to the electoral vote proceedings and his violent invaders ransacked offices, waved the Confederate flag and swung from a Senate balcony
By GEOFF EARLE, DEPUTY U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR and EMILY GOODIN SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER and NIKKI SCHWAB U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 03:37 AEDT, 8 January 2021 | UPDATED: 23:46 AEDT, 8 January 2021
The two top Democrats in Congress, Sen. Charles Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reached out directly to Vice President Mike Pence Thursday tried to push him to act immediately to remove President Trump from office, only to be rebuffed.
The two leaders called Pence hours after he had overseen a Joint Session of Congress to count the electoral votes to make Joe Biden the next president, despite intense pressure by President Trump that Pence move against it.
Late Thursday sources told CNN that Trump’s mental state was deteriorating and he was ‘ranting’ and ‘raving’ as he watched the 25th Amendment being discussed on television – with Pelosi and Schumer’s demand being played repeatedly.
But if they had hopes that Pence might join in a speedy potential effort to seize the reins of power from a volatile Trump in his final days in office, the reception they got may provide an answer.
‘Speaker Pelosi and I tried to call the vice president this morning to tell him to do this,’ Schumer told reporters in New York Thursday. ‘They kept us on hold for 25 minutes and then said the Vice President wouldn’t come on the phone.’
‘So we are making this call public because he should do it and do it right away,’ Schumer said, explaining why both he and Pelosi are calling on Pence and the Trump cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to declare Trump unfit and install Pence as president in an acting capacity.
The call preceded furious comments from Pelosi charging Trump with fomenting ‘insurrection’ and inciting ‘sedition.’
‘Yesterday the President of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America,’ Pelosi said at a Capitol press conference a day after Trump supporters stormed the building after attending a rally where Trump spoke.
She used stark language beyond even the tough talk of impeachment in last December and January, accusing him of crimes against the nation he leads.
‘In calling for this seditious act, the president has committed an unspeakable assault on our nation and our people,’ said Pelosi.
Unlike 2019 and 2020 she has just days to force through an impeachment, but this time has a far greater chance that 12 Republican senators join the Democrats to convict after some openly expressed disgust for the president or his actions. Among those Democrats would target are Pennsylvania’s retiring Pat Toomey and ultra-conservative Tom Cotton, Utah’s Mike Lee and Ohio’s Rob Portman.
In a series of developments Thursday:
- Just after 1pm, another bombshell dropped as Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary and wife of Mitch McConnell resigned over the violence – the first member of Trump’s cabinet to quit
- Democratic House members circulated draft articles of impeachment accusing Trump of inciting violent sedition and being a threat to national security
- Facebook banned Trump from his account until at least his last day in office and possibly indefinitely
- Joe Biden – unprompted – raised the use of the 25th Amendment as he called the mobs ‘an assault on democracy’
- Washington D.C, prosecutors say Trump is being investigated for inciting the riots while Lindsey Graham said if the president does one more thing he should be removed
- Former Attorney General Bill Barr said ‘orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable’
- White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany abruptly called a press briefing Thursday evening where she condemned violence but did not take responsibility for it
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said President Donald Trump had incited ‘sedition’ against the United States as she and Sen. Chuck Schumer demanded the president’s removal from office
Pelosi applied pressure to Vice President Mike Pence and urged him to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Both Democrat leaders called Pence to demand Trump’s removal from office – but were put on hold. Pence is pictured Thursday being escorted to the House Chamber
What happened at the U.S. Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by the president. This president should not hold office one day longer,’ Chuck Schumer said in a statement Thursday Schumer calls for Pence to invoke 25th Amendment to remove Trump. Pelosi tweeted shortly after her press conference: ‘Trump is deadly to our democracy and our people. He needs to go now’
Amid the focus on methods of removing the president from office, the New York Times reported that the President Trump has spoken to his advisors about the possibility of granting himself a self-pardon in the days before he leaves office.
It is an untested question courts would consider a self-pardon by the president valid. Richard Nixon was pardoned by President Gerald Ford when he resigned after Watergate.
Trump has told advisors since Election Day that he was thinking about the idea, even as he doled out pardons to political supporters like former national security advisor Gen. Mike Flynn, who withdrew his guilty plea to lying to the FBI in the Russia probe.
Trump has tweeted that he has the power to self-pardon but has said he doesn’t need to one.
Coercion Code - "Dark Times are upon us" 