Donald Trump becomes first US president to be impeached twice after landmark Congress vote

A week after supporters of US President Donald Trump burst onto Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives approved by 232 votes to 197, Wednesday, January 13, his indictment for “Incitement to insurgency” during a speech given before the violence. A week before the end of his mandate, Mr. Trump therefore faces a second impeachment: a first for a president in the history of the United States. An impeachment trial must now take place in the Senate.

“The President of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion”Democrats leader Nancy Pelosi said before continuing: “He must go, he is an obvious and immediate danger against the nation we all love”.

While the indictment did not receive a single Republican vote in the Ukraine affair over a year ago, several party members have this time joined the Democrats, already in the majority in the lower house of Congress. Ten elected members of the “Grand Old Party” thus voted for the opening of the procedure. Among them, Liz Cheney, one of the centerpieces of the Republican minority in the House, also the daughter of the former US vice-president, Dick Cheney. “None of this would have happened without the president”, she had estimated in a press release.

House Republican figurehead Kevin McCarthy, for his part, ensured that this procedure was ” a mistake “. Admittedly he admits that the outgoing president wears a ” responsibility “ in the violence at the Capitol, which took place on January 6, but he also believes that the way forward would have been to create a ” investigative committee “ and to vote a ” motion of censure “.

Possible support for Mitch McConnell in the Senate

The Democrats may take control of the Upper House on January 20 (the day of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden), they will nonetheless need the rallying of many Republicans to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary for the conviction. The holding of the trial also risks hampering legislative action by Democrats at the start of the Biden presidency, as he will monopolize sessions in the Senate.

Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican majority in the upper house, has also indicated that he does not intend to use his prerogatives to summon senators from this week, therefore ruling out any possibility that the hearings end before Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20.

Mitch McConnell would have at the same time told his relatives that he viewed this indictment favorably, judging that it was founded and that it would help the Republican Party to definitively turn the page Donald Trump. Thus this clever strategist, very influential, he perhaps holds the key to the outcome of this historic procedure, because a single public speech could encourage Republican senators to condemn the 45^e President of the United States.

Donald Trump denounces a “witch hunt”

Every day a little more isolated within his own camp, Donald Trump has tried to reduce the procedure aimed at yet another maneuver by the Democrats, to a new one. ” witch hunt “. A few days before his departure for Mar-a-Lago, Florida, where he should begin his new life as a“Ex-president”, however, he appears increasingly disconnected from the course of political life in the heart of the American federal capital.

From Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday he wore a less aggressive posture than the previous week, evoking the weather “Peace and quiet”, and stubbornly refusing to recognize any responsibility in the assault on the Capitol, judging on this subject that his speech had been “Quite suitable”. “NO violence, NO crime, NO vandalism”, he urged in a statement sent to the conservative Fox News channel on Wednesday – his Twitter account having been closed -, while new demonstrations are announced for this weekend.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence later ruled out the other threat to Mr. Trump’s end of term by refusing to invoke the 25^e amendment of the Constitution, which would have enabled him to dismiss the outgoing president by declaring him unfit to exercise his functions. Despite his self-assurance and the support of some very loyal elected officials, Donald Trump is more alone than ever after a series of resignations have occurred in his government, accompanied by scathing criticism.