ionigeria.com Nigerian Newspaper
The US House of Representatives is expected to hold a vote to impeach President Donald Trump over his role in last week’s storming of Congress.
Democrats accuse the president of encouraging his supporters to attack the Capitol building. Five people died.
Members of Mr Trump’s Republican party say they will join Democrats to impeach him on Wednesday, formally charging the president with inciting insurrection.
President Trump has rejected any responsibility for the violence.
The riot last Wednesday happened after Mr Trump told supporters at a rally in Washington DC to “fight like hell” against the result of November’s election.
Will Trump be impeached?
As Democrats hold a majority in the House, the vote is likely to pass. The case will then head for the Senate, where a trial will be held to determine the president’s guilt.
A two-thirds majority would be needed to convict Mr Trump, meaning at least 17 Republicans would have to vote for conviction. As many as 20 Senate Republicans are open to convicting the president, the New York Times reports.
The timeline of when a trial could be held is not known but it is unlikely it could be finished before Mr Trump leaves office on 20 January, when Joe Biden will be sworn in as president.
The Senate could also use an impeachment trial to hold a vote blocking Mr Trump from ever running for office again. He has indicated he plans to campaign for president in 2024.
Wednesday’s vote means that Mr Trump is likely to become the first US president ever to be impeached twice.
He became the third president to be impeached in December 2019 over charges of breaking the law by asking Ukraine to investigate Mr Biden in the election. The Senate cleared him at a trial.
Impeachment: The basics
- What is impeachment? Impeachment is when a sitting president is charged with crimes. In this case, President Trump is accused of inciting insurrection by encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol
- Could Trump be removed from office? A simple majority of the House of Representatives is enough to impeach him – but to remove him from office, he then needs to be convicted of those crimes by the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is not guaranteed
- So what does it mean? This is the second time Mr Trump will have been impeached, and even though a trial could begin after his term ends, a conviction could mean he is barred from holding public office again
What have Republicans said?
The third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, Liz Cheney, vowed to back impeachment, saying Mr Trump had “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack”.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” the Wyoming representative, the daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, added.
Three other Republican House members – John Katko, Adam Kinzinger and Fred Upton – said they would also vote for impeachment.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump ally who has said he opposes impeachment, decided not to ask rank-and-file members of the party to vote against the measure, US media reported.
According to the New York Times, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told confidants he was pleased Democrats wanted to impeach the president because he believed it would help rid the Republican party of Mr Trump.
