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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA majority of the U.S. House voted Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time, just a week after he encouraged loyalists to “fight like hell” against election results—a speech that was followed by a mob of his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol.
With the Capitol secured by armed National Guard troops inside and out, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump on an article for “incitement of insurrection.”
During debate before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Republicans and Democrats to “search their souls.” Trump would be the first American president to be impeached twice.
Trump “must go,” Pelosi said. “He is a clear and present danger to the nation we all love.”
Actual removal seems unlikely before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Republican leader would not agree to bring the chamber back immediately, all but ensuring a Senate trial could not begin at least until Jan. 19.
Still, McConnell did not rule out voting to convict Trump in the event of a trial. In a note to his fellow Republican senators just before the House was to begin voting, he said he is undecided.
“While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” McConnell wrote.
In the House, the momentum for action has been unstoppable.
The impeachment proceedings came one week after a violent, pro-Trump mob breached the U.S. Capitol, sending lawmakers into hiding and revealing the fragility of the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of power. The riot has also forced a reckoning among some Republicans, who have stood by Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election.
While Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 brought no Republican votes in the House, at least eight House Republicans announced that they would break with the party to join Democrats this time, saying Trump violated his oath to protect and defend U.S. democracy. Among them was Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
As two Republican lawmakers—Washington Reps. Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler—announced on the floor they would vote to impeach, Trump issued a new statement urging “NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind.” But he has repeatedly declined to take any responsibility for last week’s riots.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said for the first time that Trump does bear responsibility, acknowledging on the House floor before the vote that Biden is the next president and that radical liberal groups were not responsible for the riots, as some conservatives have falsely claimed.
But McCarthy said he opposed impeachment, instead favoring a “fact finding commission” and censure.
As for threats of more trouble from intruders, security was exceptionally tight at the Capitol with shocking images of massed National Guard troops, secure perimeters around the complex and metal-detector screenings required for lawmakers entering the House chamber.
“We are debating this historic measure at a crime scene,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
Though McConnell is declining to hasten an impeachment trial, a Republican strategist told The Associated Press the GOP leader believes Trump committed impeachable offenses and considers the Democrats’ impeachment drive an opportunity to reduce the divisive, chaotic president’s hold on the GOP.
McConnell called major Republican donors last weekend to gauge their thinking about Trump and was told that Trump had clearly crossed a line. McConnell told them he was through with Trump, said the strategist, who demanded anonymity to describe McConnell’s conversations.
The New York Times first reported McConnell’s views on impeachment on Tuesday.
The stunning collapse of Trump’s final days in office, along with warnings of more violence ahead, leaves the nation at an uneasy and unfamiliar juncture before Biden takes office.
Trump faces the single charge of “incitement of insurrection.”
The four-page impeachment resolution relies on Trump’s own incendiary rhetoric and the falsehoods he spread about Biden’s election victory, including at a White House rally on the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, in making its case for “high crimes and misdemeanors” as demanded in the Constitution.
Trump took no responsibility for the riot, suggesting it was the drive to oust him rather than his actions around the bloody riot that was dividing the country.
“To continue on this path, I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our country, and it’s causing tremendous anger,” Trump said Tuesday, his first remarks to reporters since last week’s violence.
A Capitol police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies. Lawmakers scrambled for safety and hid as rioters took control of the Capitol, delaying by hours the tally of Electoral College votes that was the last step in finalizing Biden’s victory.
The Republican lawmakers who chose to vote yes, including Cheney, were unswayed by the president’s logic. Their support of impeachment cleaved the Republican leadership, and the party itself.
“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” said Cheney 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.”
Unlike a year ago, Trump faces impeachment as a weakened leader, having lost his own reelection as well as the Senate Republican majority.
The president was said to be livid with perceived disloyalty from McConnell and Cheney, as calls mounted for her ouster. He was also deeply frustrated that he could not hit back with his shuttered Twitter account, the fear of which has kept most Republicans in line for years, according to White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
The team around Trump has hollowed out, without any plan for combating the impeachment effort. Trump leaned on Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to push Republican senators, while chief of staff Mark Meadows called some of his former colleagues on the Hill.
Trump was expected to watch much of Wednesday’s proceedings on TV from the White House residence and his private dining area off the Oval Office.
The House tried first to push Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to intervene, passing a resolution Tuesday night calling on them to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Trump from office.
Pence made it clear he would not do so, saying in a letter to Pelosi, that it was “time to unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden.”
It’s far from clear there will be the two-thirds vote in the evenly divided Senate needed to convict Trump, though at least two Republicans have called for him to “go away as soon as possible.”
The FBI warned ominously of potential armed protests by Trump loyalists ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Capitol Police urged lawmakers to be on alert. Charges of sedition are being considered for rioters.
Biden has said it’s important to ensure that the “folks who engaged in sedition and threatening the lives, defacing public property, caused great damage—that they be held accountable.”
Fending off concerns that an impeachment trial would bog down his first days in office, the president-elect is encouraging senators to divide their time between taking taking up his priorities of confirming his nominees and approving COVID-19 relief while also conducting the trial.
The impeachment bill draws from Trump’s own false statements about his election defeat to Biden. Judges across the country, including some nominated by Trump, have repeatedly dismissed cases challenging the election results, and former Attorney General William Barr, a Trump ally, has said there was no sign of widespread fraud.
While some have questioned impeaching the president so close to the end of his term, there is precedent. In 1876, during the Ulysses Grant administration, War Secretary William Belknap was impeached by the House the day he resigned, and the Senate convened a trial months later. He was acquitted.
Trump was impeached in 2019 over his dealings with Ukraine but acquitted by the Senate in 2020.
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THANK YOU to the 10 Republicans that put their country over their party, making this the most bi-partisan impeachment in history.
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“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
Thank you for all the elected officials who stood up for the Constitution and against those who incited insurrection.
and interesting that Greg Pence voted “no” to making his brother president…. 🙂
He’s vile.
Greg Pence voted No to punishing a guy who incited a mob that was chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. Which, oh by the way, had erected a gallows.
If any Republican had a reason to vote for impeachment, it would be Greg Pence.
Trump is Nancy’s nemesis. He lives rent free in her brain. Impeaching him twice has consumed her party and the House – to the point where they are putting the people’s business second after their personal vendettas. We have waited 8 months for a 2nd stimulus, but Nancy stayed up all weekend drafting a 2nd impeachment. What a waste of time and treasure! It means little – even the shock value is diminished by the 2nd attempt at something that will not help our citizens one iota. But nancy and the snowflakes feel good. That is what matters, right?
Trump reduced regulations, built the economy and jobs up, reduced taxes and prevented many criminals and drugs from entering our country with the wall. Biden will do exactly the opposite of every one of those things. So if you are a Biden fan, just remember this is what you voted for when your paycheck is smaller or your job is axed altogether.
Did your taxes get reduced? Mine did not. I know he decreased corporate taxes by $1 trillion, but at the same time increased the national debt by $8 trillion. Are tax cuts that aren’t paid for really tax cuts? or tax increases on future generations?
I highly doubt your taxes dropped significantly unless you happen to be in the top 1%. If you are, you can afford a smaller paycheck.
Jay, I’ve never been on unemployment, but I don’t think they tax it. That could be why you didn’t see a cut.
Don A. – good one, but not on unemployment here. But good job deflecting a question with an insult – a true Trumper!
He doubled the standard deduction which a tax decrease for most.
The constitution states you can’t impeach a private citizen. Mitch knows this. That’s why he is waiting till after they swear in, oh that guy, you know. . .
They can impeach someone once they’re out of office and they have. By being convicted, he can’t run again, and he loses his pension, health care benefits, office space, and Secret Service protection.
Considering they used to execute people for treason, a small price to pay.
Be careful about the idea that a President gets a get-out-of-jail-free card on his last days in office.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/01/13/impeachment-donald-trump-william-worth-belknap-column/6637782002/
How long before this board is filled with exploding Trumpsters’ heads?
Jay and Wesley, I can’t help you understand if you don’t get informed. I just typed in Trump Tax cuts – there are 100s of articles. Here is one – https://finance.yahoo.com/news/truth-trumps-tax-cuts-numbers-120026435.html
You picked one from the guy who couldn’t even get appointed as Secretary of Labor.
The jobs trajectory didn’t change by any meaningful measure with the Trump tax cuts. But companies did spend lots of it on jobs buybacks.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/what-did-corporate-america-do-tax-break-buy-record-amounts-n886621
And it did setup Republicans to spend the next 4 years yammering about the exploding deficit … which they helped create.
Lower taxes are a lovely idea bout the cuts have to come somewhere. And don’t say “fraud and waste”. It’s either less on the military, less on the old people, or less on the poor people. Pick one and be clear about it.
If you’re using nbc as a source, the problem starts there.
Feel free to reply with a better source.
For instance – here’s the flaming liberals at The Economist calling for Trump’s conviction.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/16/donald-trumps-reckoning
I like The WSJ and Economist. I hate since I’m right leaning I’m always accused of being a Newsmax or OAN shill. I watch neither and their is only one guy on Fox I watch although admittingly they thrive on pointing out the hypocrisies of the other side keeping you in a state of anger which I’ve discovered is not a good way to live. I imagine liberal networks probably do this as well. Your not going to find a neutral source so for me I try to pick the ones that at least will give you both sides of the issues and are good writers. I can’t believe some of the stuff that passes for journalism these days.
So why does Biden keep saying what he says? To quote Ronald Reagan: “It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”
Also, corporate tax cuts work in favor of the U.S. by bringing our taxes down to a level similar to the rest of the world. This encourages companies to on-shore their operations again, which leads to jobs in the U.S. for you and me and an overall growth in the GDP, which leads to lower interest rates for our Treasuries, which leads to lower mortgage interest rates for you and me and promotes overall growth in our economy.
Of course there are lots of other factors and in/out – but that is the gist of why lower taxes are in our favor.
Typical Republican dribble.
Lower taxes worked in the 80s because the top marginal rates were over 50%. Today, not so much.
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Now that the top rate is under 40% and Social Security is still capped well below the point where the maximum tax rate kicks in, a whole lot of upper-middle class folks pay a lower overall percentage of income in taxes than true middle class people. That’s just wrong.
To Trumpsters, and Republicans, the end justifies the means. They sold their souls and supported a racist, authoritarian, pathological President for $1.5 Trillion in additional debt he called a tax cut for the wealthy and now have left it to Democrats once again to repair a devastated economy (that $1.5 trillion would sure come in handy now) and to lead an intelligent effort to save American lives. As a parting gift he incited an assault on the US capitol. He will be convicted because this time around because witnesses will be allowed and those witnesses will be all the insurgents they have rounded up who will be asked, what made you think you could storm the capitol? Did you feel you were urged to or had permission? If so, from who? After Trump hid in his White House bunker (after promising he would be with them) and disowning them in his statement tonight, I’m pretty sure they will get some pretty honest and incriminating answers.
So the untrue name calling starts you lost.
Oh ok Greg! So glad you have it all figured out if you are pretty sure.
Look friend, It’s the free market economy that drives this country. Trump was great at it. OBummer and JoeBummer – not so much. A good economy helps everyone. Instead of handing people rotting fish, a Republican would rather hand them a fishing pole and bait.
‘Trickle-down’ tax cuts make rich richer but don’t boost economy, study finds
https://www.ibj.com/articles/trickle-down-tax-cuts-make-rich-richer-but-dont-help-economy-study-finds
Don, check your facts. More jobs were created during the Obama-Biden administration than in the TrumPence years.
In Trump’s defense, Obama was dealing with an economic recovery. It’s easier to show jobs as being added as the economy picks up.
In Obama’s defense, Trump said things were awful during the Obama administration and claimed he did something magical to make the economy better with his tax cuts. Not sure those tax cuts led to more or better paying jobs to be created in a statistically significant way. Heck, look at the Carrier plant in Indianapolis… all those jobs are still gone despite Trump’s interest in saving them for around 8 minutes.
If you’re reading this with amusement, these comments reflect the great divide that is our country. The snowflakes are just talking about how he is a bad person and hurt their feelings. LThe Republicans are presenting facts about how he was a good president.
The only difference is Republicans love to debate all of this. Well liberals just want people to not oppose them or be canceled.
A reminder that you’re the one calling people names.
Republicans give people a fishing pole and bait. Of course, the lake has been commercially harvested before you got there and most of the fish are gone, and the water is poisoned from runoff, but as long as you think you’ve got opportunity, beats so-called “socialism”, right?
Trump and the free markets? This is the President who implemented tariffs everywhere, even on our allies. He pulled us out of trade deals for our products and now the rest of their world has made their own deals. “America first” now means “America alone”.
https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/did-trumps-tariffs-benefit-american-workers-and-national-security/
“American firms and consumers paid the vast majority of the cost of Trump’s tariffs.
While tariffs benefited some workers in import-competing industries, they hurt workers in sectors that rely on imported inputs and those in exporting industries facing retaliation from trade partners.
Trump’s tariffs did not help the U.S. negotiate better trade agreements or significantly improve national security.“
OK. Please share your facts . Trumpsters and Republicans love to espouse the comparative success of their economic plans. Please prove it. Do a side by side analysis of Trump and all Presidents going back to the Great Depression. Look at key economic indicators such as GDP growth, Deficit, Debt, Debt to GDP ratio, Trade Deficit, Reduction in unemployment, Reduction in Black Unemployment, Stock Market Return, and trade deficit. Come up with a before and after and an annual average over their entire presidency. (since we got a few one termers in there) Use official government published data sources. I know that’s a lot of work and would be too much factual data for you to absorb so let me tell you Trump does not fare very well along with Republicans in general. But you will believe anything Trump, Republicans, Fox, Newsmax, OANN tell you and they love you for it and they count on you for it. Like a bookie loves a compulsive gambler. Sometimes you win, mostly you lose, but they win all the time. I guess Trump just got tired of winning just like he said.
Ah, the old existential question about trickle down vs trickle up. It’s just a bummer we need corporations for paychecks.
We disagree on so many points. But since I work in finance/business and already understand how economics work, why don’t we just see in a few years who has another jobless recovery or shovel ready jobs that don’t exist, or an import deficit with China while mr hunter Biden gets richer. Then we can decide if trickle down or trickle up is better.
You work in finance. Debate classes don’t seem to have been required for your major as you’re not doing well so far as far as producing evidence to make your points or refute what others have to say. Did they not teach you how to use the keyboard to the left of the number pad?
(This debate can be as snide as you want or as polite as you want. Your call.)
Trump is/was not a free market capitalist. He trashed decades of GOP economic policy in his 4 years in office and all the obedient Republicans followed him right off the cliff. He was a poor businessman who ran the country as badly as he runs his businesses. It’s likely you have a better understanding of economics than he does.
Remind me, what happened to all those great trade deals that the master businessman was going to sign? What happened to pressuring all those countries to stop China stealing our IP and playing fair? The countries in the TPP without us. China and the EU signed a deal. We are America Alone and will have to start mandating higher wages and banning imports/automation to keep people employed … which is NOT free market capitalism.
Joe I’d like to keep it friendly. I am arguing economic theory. These arguments have gone on since the dawn of the fed and international trade. I can tell you are no dummy yourself so we are two adults having a debate.
Trump is not my perfect president due to his personality, but he did, prior to Covid, have a very string economy with massive job growth across all demographics and a strong GDP. The replacement of NAFTA with the USMCA was a great move, and had Covid not popped up in January, we likely would have gotten something done with China.
Don, whether or not you work in finance, the proof of economic theory is results. Can you show studies or data to back up the trickle down theory?
Great point!
Don, again you repeat whatever you are being told by Trump and the Republican. Trump was at most a middle roader on all key economic measures PRIOR to the pandemic and doing worse than Obama in his final 3 years (comparing him post pandemic would just be too brutal). Do your homework or continue to spread the lies. I have the data published by the US government, which you are sure to call fake news but do yourself a favor and substantiate what you so firmly promote with facts. You claim to be a finance guy but won’t show the numbers. Give us yours and I will give you mine with Federal government citations. Same with China. China’s trade surplus with the US has not changed at all since the trade war was started (in 2020 it was the 2nd highest on record) yet cost American companies and consumers billions of dollars in tariff dollars. PLEASE don’t tell me as a finance guy you believe China pays US tariffs (another Trump lie that his followers accept hook line and sinker) or you will lose any further credibility.
Don – I’m just not seeing evidence that Trump did anything to help the economy. It basically continued the same trend regarding job growth that it was on from the economic recession back in 2008.
https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/dam/imageserve/5d1f738e4c687b00085bd38b/960×0.png?cropX1=-1&cropY1=-1&cropX2=-1&cropY2=-1&quality=75&fit=scale&background=000000&uri=
Job growth is fine but in what sectors and what’s the pay? Seems like the middle class jobs that existed before are being replaced by automation/outsourcing, and the jobs that are replacing them are distribution/service jobs that don’t have the same benefits when it comes to pay/health care. So we’ve gone from a family being able to live on one spouse’s income, to requiring both parents to work, to both adults having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
Don’t get me wrong, the tax cuts were great for me. But we’re turning into a third world country, which I’ve visited before. You’re going to have a few rich people and a whole lot of poor people. That’s where the desire for socialism is coming from. Lots of people are angry as hell.
To cut that off at the pass, something different has to be done. We’ve been doing trickle down for a few decades and it doesn’t appear to be the answer. Something different has to be done. UBI, decoupling health care from employment, stopping automation so people have jobs, raising the minimum wage..
And a reminder, all the regulations we have nowadays? Those got implemented for a reason. It’s super easy to just say you’re going to cut all regulations and the free market will fix everything, but I don’t think the history of America proves that out. There’s a reason we have things like the Clean Water Act and OHSA and so on … be had it was a problem when we didn’t have them.
Also, this chart.
https://twitter.com/HalSinger/status/1349726382809559040
Just like the past 9 months this rag is evolving into the Indinapolis political journal and Indianapolis medical journal. Since Hoghead shut down business all that is news worthy is COVid and Trump
+1
Boss Hogsett has the city burning and empty.
The remainder of articles review Nancy or Chuck’s latest hostage negotiations while Wesley out west throws in his progressive 3 cents of utopia.
Another day on the IBJ!
You all need to listen to Rep. Jim Jordan’s remarks on the House Floor Yesterday. Some in defense of Trump, to be sure, but mostly in defense of The United States of America and its greatness. Perfect? No…but show me a country that is…and if there is one and you think the United States is so defective, why don’t you pack up and move there? Soon.
If Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene are the future of the Republican Patty, I’ll never vote for them again. She’s crazier than the entire “squad” combined by a large margin.
I don’t want to hear Jim Jordan going on about cancel culture when the Trump movement was based on cancelling Obama (he wasn’t born here, he’s not a real American) and canceling Biden (voter fraud).
At least with Trump you had the smoke of his financial entanglements… not to mention, all those connections to Russia that led to convictions.
Quote: The impeachment bill draws from Trump’s own false statements about his election defeat to Biden. Judges across the country, including some nominated by Trump, have repeatedly dismissed cases challenging the election results, and former Attorney General William Barr, a Trump ally, has said there was no sign of widespread fraud.
I get tired of reading of these accusations of “widespread fraud.” There wasn’t because there need not have been. All that was needed -and worked- was enough fraud in four key cities (Madison WI, Detroit MI, Philadelphia PA, and Atlanta GA) to swing those states and, thus, the entire election. Nothing widespread there…not even within those states, much less the country as a whole. Just the identified targets that worked, having set the stage for the fraud well before the election by bringing a variety of lawsuits to reduce voter verification and ease fraud through mail-in (not to mention wholesale mailing out!) of ballots. Most Democrats, if nothing else, subscribe to the theory that the end justifies the means. They fail to realize that if corruption can work for them, it can also work against them when and if the time comes…so don’t cry “foul” when and if it does, Dems. Two wrongs don’t make a right, so how about not enacting and then endorsing any wrong to begin with?
Hey Bob – if you want to talk about the ends justifying the means, start with Mitch McConnell. If Democrats learned that ends justify the means, he is the master teacher. Witness the contortions to ram three judges onto the Supreme Court…
Also … no evidence of fraud in any of those places introduced into a court of law. Don’t worry, under the guise of “voter integrity”, all those places will erect more barriers to voting to make sure “those people” learn that “their place” is to just listen, not to have a say…
The fraud is the lie that there was fraud. Once that is exterminated, we can move forward as a country. Maybe like we could have moved forward as a country from Trump and Russia if he’d sat for an interview with Mueller and released his tax returns…
Joe, you know that Democrats would have done the same thing regarding supreme court judges. To think one side as noble and the other not in my opinion is just giving them too much respect. Mitch McConnell is good at what he does and now you’ll get to see Schumer do his best imitation of McConnell. I don’t mind that. Our system of democracy is certainly better than any other country. Regardless of what happened or didn’t concerning voting it’s over and time to move on; however the issue itself is not. One side simply wants you to have an ID and vote in person unless you actually qualify for absentee and the other side wants to make voting as easy as possible without having to prove who you are and that you can legally vote. Of course both ways benefit one party over the other and therein lies the problem. We need a system that “benefits” neither side. I don’t have the answer, but we absolutely need to work on the problem or each side that loses is going to cry foul louder and louder as we move forward. Trump only magnified the problem. It doesn’t go away with him.
We don’t know what the Democrats would have done. But it’s the Republicans who said that people should have a voice in 2016 and blocked filling a spot… but they should not have a voice in 2020 and rammed in a judge. So, you’re right, from now on it’s likely naked power with the precedent set by Republicans.
Unity isn’t just expecting the other side what you crammed down their throat, you have to give something up. For instance – if you don’t want the court expanded, perhaps encourage Thomas or Alito to retire.
The only reason that one manner of voting benefited one side more than the other was because one side made it a campaign issue to slander some methods of voting for no good reason. I mean, you don’t think Republicans benefited in Florida from mail-in ballots?
Several states do everything via mail-out ballots and don’t appear to have any issues. Maybe other states would be wise to look at their example. But the current state of affairs feels like Republicans don’t want everything to vote because they can only win elections if they keep the number of voters down.
Then again, maybe that’s my thought because Trump said that out loud back in March. Subtle, he isn’t.
“Welcome to the USA, where we pretend our problems are created by ONE man, and ignore that BOTH parties have been failing us for years.”
🙁
You’re right Maryellen. We would be wise to remember why he was elected in 2016 and not forget our dissatisfaction with both parties. I would really like to see term limits in the house and senate. I think that would be a start.
Excellent.
Career politicians proving they have 2 sides in their echo chambers and the media increases the volume. Suckers!