Get Ready for Another Impeachment

Enough Democrats have pledged their support that it will be able to pass the House.

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House Democrats are poised to impeach President Donald Trump this week, charging him with incitement of insurrection after a mob of his supporters violently overran the Capitol last Wednesday.

Democratic leaders plan to bring an article of impeachment forward for a vote tomorrow. It will likely be approved, and if it is, it will grant Trump an historic distinction: No president has ever before been impeached twice. 

“President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government,” the article, introduced by Rep. David Cicilline and co-sponsored by more than 200 Democrats, declares. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”

Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, announced Monday that enough Democrats have pledged their support for impeachment that it will pass in the House. A few House Republicans, such as Rep. Adam Kinzinger and freshman Rep. Peter Meijer, could also vote for it, but exact numbers are unclear.  

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  1. Avatar photo
    Johntadian

    I can't wait to see how race gets injected into this.

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  2. Eric B

    “I assume in the next couple weeks, Schumer and Mitch will sit down and kind of figure out how this is going to work,”
    Is this to agree how votes are going to be cast? If so, why are there senators?

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  3. Eric B

    If they don't impeach now, they will be saving Trump headlines for a point in time when Biden/Harris need distraction away from some nonsense they might get into.

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    Pat Riot

    In The Dispatch's (first ever) editorial I disagreed that Congress should pursue impeachment of Trump. I stand by that.

    Trump needs to be removed from office *right now* for the safety of the country. Impeachment won't do that. Only the 25A will do that. Pence and his cabinet own every single bad outcome between now in January 20th, and will have hell to pay if there is more violence. They should take the United States out of danger and remove Trump immediately.

    Trump needs to be punished for his crimes against our country, and impeachment won't do that (sufficiently, anyhow) either. Trump does not care about his reputation (as if), a measly $200k/year of a pension, and while banning him from running again would be a punishment, **it doesn't fit the crime**.

    Trump needs to be *imprisoned*, not impeached. Only with Trump in prison will we send a message to people inside and outside of our country that the Constitution is the law of the land in the United States of America.

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    Mudskipper

    I find the silence from officials on what happened on January 6th to be troubling. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I think there is worse news to come and that people are stonewalling the release of that news, perhaps not wanting to support the impeachment effort or to protect certain politicians from being expelled from Congress before impeachment is voted upon.

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    1. Shaybult

      Worse news... like what? I know you're totally just speculating, but I want to know the specifics of what you're speculating about!

      (Seriously, this whole thing has given me terrible anxiety about the future of our country, and I find it helpful to try to imagine all the possible scenarios of how things could go... makes me feel more prepared.)

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    Ohio Gas Hog

    Schumer has no clue what a statement like this sounds to most in middle America. In fact it are statements like that made a lot of people who hated Trump, for obvious reasons, but still voted for him.

    “We’re united in wanting big, bold change, and we’re going to sit down as a caucus and discuss the best ways to get that done.”

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    1. Tim Johnson

      I'd rather have a statement like that from Schumer, than statements from Trump inciting violence, sedition and hate. That's your tradeoff, middle America.

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      Mudskipper

      Yeah, gotta agree with that, even though I am a Democrat. Democratic politicians would be well advised to read more conservative sites and the comments on those sites to learn to speak to more than their base.

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      1. Tim Johnson

        Agreed mostly but I'm pretty tired of trying to 'understand' them when I also see them sowing the seeds of insurrection with enabling lies about anything they disagree with.

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        Ohio Gas Hog

        It's a problem that cuts both sides.

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    Barry Alexander

    Somewhat ironic about Peter Meijer. He has Justin Amash's old seat. Amash stepped down because the Republicans rejected him for not being loyal to Trump. Meijer won a primary that consisted mostly of candidates competing to outdo each other pledging their souls to The Orange One (being a scion of a very rich and famous family, who really have done a lot of good on that side of the state, didn't hurt). Hopefully, this represents a true change of heart on Meijer's part, and not cynical political positioning (faint hope, I know).

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      Aylene Wright

      Amash himself has been very complimentary of Meijer, and I certainly don't think he's the type to compliment anyone if he didn't mean it, so I am pretty sure he won't backslide from where he is now. Though he hasn't totally committed to support impeachment, he has certainly made it clear that he wants the GOP to move beyond Trump ASAP, and I think that's actually more important in the long run.

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  8. Phil B

    A proposed solution: The House impeaches (as expected) but does not submit the articles to the Senate and states it has no intention to do so UNLESS Trump decides he wants to run for office again. If so, the impeachment process resumes and the Senate conducts a trial. Not a perfect solution by any means but it is better than tying up Biden's early weeks/months with a "show" trial that very few will see as a priority with the pandemic still top of mind and with countless other real issues to tackle. The country is so divided already, let's give Biden a chance to bring the country together as best he can without a divisive trial to muck things up--especially if it results in another acquittal without enough Republicans on board.

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    Christopher Clements

    The 50-50 split in the Senate will likely make "Kingmakers" of both moderate Democrats and Republicans alike. Manchin, although he is crowing as if he's the one to please, will have plenty of company from Sens Sinema, Kelly, (both from AZ and Kelly is up again in '22), along with Michael Bennet (D-CO), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Roy Blunt (R-MO). Even the newly elected Senator Warnock (D-GA) will look to moderate and navigate his positions as he is up again in two years as well - likely against Rep Doug Collins. So, the last time this was the case, there were no clear winners or losers - just gridlock - which is probably the best any conservative could hope for in the zany season we're enduring.

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    Jen

    They shouldn’t drag this out. Vote tomorrow. Make every Republican congressman go on record. The Washington Examiner reported that Tom Cotton’s statement stopped more Republican Senators from joining Hawley and Cruz. But there were two Senators (Ben Sasse in a lengthy Facebook post and Mitt Romney with a shorter statement) prior to Cotton who were calling out this stunt and warning how dangerous it would be. And Cotton’s statement opened with a paragraph saying he shared concerns about so-called “election irregularities” and that Congress should hold hearings on it. And he ended it with praise for Trump saying he “campaigned vigorously for his reelection”. Make no mistake there were/are more Republican Senators who either really believe this fraud nonsense or think they have to pander to Trump’s base. That is bad.

    It appears the Senate won’t do anything until after inauguration. Fine. Still make every Republican Senator go on record as to whether they support insurrection or not. It has to happen. Let’s see how many Senators vote there conscience and how many really are frauds more concerned about their re-election in 2022 or positioning themselves for 2024.

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      Yorg

      I fully support the clear fact that the claims of fraud by Trump and his sad supporters and sycophantic politicians are ‘nonsense’ but I feel compelled to point out to the many intelligent and fair Dispatch readers that believing in nonsense regarding election fraud is by no means limited to republican voters and politicians. For the better part of a year or two, many many standard issue Democrat voters believed the 2016 presidential election was “hacked”, as in the voting machines were tampered with. The MSM echoed this nonsense. And while Trump, as the president, rightly deserves the very highest scrutiny on his behavior and delusions, it is also true that Stacy Abrams and her supporters have been making the very same fraud type claims about her loss in the GA governors race.

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