On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump on charges of inciting insurrection by his supporters during the Capitol riots last week. 232 Representatives voted in favour of impeachment, 197 voted against, and 4 abstained, making Trump the only US President to be impeached twice by the House. The trial will now head to the Republican-dominated Senate; however, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has indicated that the second and deciding vote will likely be delayed until after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
The trial represented the most bipartisan impeachment vote ever, with 10 Republicans joining their 222 Democratic counterparts in approving one article of impeachment. Although House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) voted against impeaching Trump, he did hold the president responsible for last week’s riots, and said that Trump “should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding”.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said, “The president of the United States incited this insurrection and this armed rebellion,” adding, “He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation we all love.”
One of the biggest developments of the day was that Senate Majority Leader McConnell said that he is considering voting in favour of impeaching Trump during the upcoming Senate trial. In fact, he wrote to his fellow party members saying, “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.”
Unlike the House, where a simple majority is enough, a successful impeachment in the Senate requires a two-thirds majority. McConnell has also thus far rejected Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-New York) impassioned requests to bring the Senate, which is currently on a recess, back into session this week.
McConnell argues that there is insufficient time to conduct a “fair or serious trial” in the remaining seven days of Trump’s term in office, given that previous Senate impeachment trials took 21, 37, and 83 days.
Trump released a video statement soon after the vote but did not refer to the trial. He said, “Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for,” and went on to say, “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence.”
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2021
Regardless of what happens, it is clear that the nation is divided, and this was underscored by some of the points made by the Republican lawmakers who voted against impeachment. For example, Jim Jordan from Ohio said blaming Trump for the riots was “cancel culture” gone too far, while Tom McClintock (R-California) said last week’s events might not have occurred in the first place “if we prosecuted [Black Lives Matter] and antifa rioters across the country with the same determination these last six months”.
Likewise, among the civilian population, a survey conducted by Quinnipiac University following the riots revealed the Trump still holds a 71% approval rating among GOP voters.
While Democrats are pushing for a trial before Biden takes office, waiting might serve their purposes better, given that they are set to hold a majority in the Senate after January 20, making the probability of reaching a two-third majority slightly higher. If Trump is successfully impeached, he will be banned from running for federal office ever again.
The proceedings this week were set in motion by events from last Wednesday, when thousands of Trump supporters marched to the Capitol to delay and obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Many protesters stormed the Capitol building and reached the insides of the House Chamber. Five people died as a result of the violence that ensued.