US: House Moves to Impeach President Trump for Capitol Riot, Republicans Start Turning on Him

Democrats in the United States House of Representatives are moving to impeach outgoing President Donald Trump for a second time on charges of inciting the Capitol Hill riot last week after making false claims that the election had been stolen from him and telling his supporters to “fight back.”

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would vote on the impeachment of Trump on Wednesday after Vice President Mike Pence, in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rejected the resolution calling upon him to invoke the 25th Amendment to strip Trump of his power and declare him unable to successfully discharge the duties of his office, the CNN reported.

The Democrats have enough votes to impeach the president in the House, which requires a simple majority. But the Senate, where both the Republicans and Democrats have now 50-50 seats -- would require votes of two-third of the members to remove the president out of the office. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in her capacity as Chairperson of the Senate would add one more to the Democrats when necessary.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the vote on impeachment in the upper chambers of the US Congress can not happen before the Inauguration Day on January 20. 

However, several Republican leaders have come out in support of trump’s impeachment. The House of Representatives' third most senior Republican, Liz Cheney, said she would vote to impeach Trump over last week's US Capitol riot. Cheney said in a statement: "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” the BBC reported. 

Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler announced on Twitter that she would vote to impeach President Trump. Two other Republican House members, John Katko and Adam Kinzinger, said they would also back the impeachment.

Co-authored by Congressmen Jamie Raskin, David Cicilline and Ted Lieu, the article of impeachment -- co-sponsored by 211 House members -- was tabled on Monday.

The article of impeachment charges Trump with a count of "incitement of insurrection" for his actions on January 6, when he delivered a speech inciting his supporters to lay siege to the Capitol, an action that temporarily halted the counting of Electoral College votes and resulted in the deaths of five individuals, including an officer of the US Capitol Police.

Later on Monday, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar also introduced two articles of impeachment against Trump. The first article cites Trump's abuse of power for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. The second article addresses the incitement of violence for orchestrating an attempted coup against our country.

(With inputs from PTI)