US Politics

Democratic leaders have called for Donald Trump to be forced from office before his term ends on 20 January for his role in inciting what his successor, Joe Biden, described as “one of the darkest days” in US history.As a new 7ft fence was belatedly erected around the US Capitol on Thursday, an inquiry was launched into why the seat of US democracy was left so poorly defended against a predictable assault.But the principal political focus was on the dangers of allowing a president widely seen as being the ultimate instigator of Wednesday’s mob attack to retain power in the remaining two weeks before Biden’s inauguration.The president-elect said Wednesday’s insurrection marked “one of the darkest days in the history of our nation”, saying the attack was carried out by “domestic terrorists”. Biden accused his predecessor of unleashing an “all-out attack” on the country’s democratic institutionsChuck Schumer, who is the incoming Senate majority leader following the Democratic sweep of Georgia, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, called for Trump to be removed through the 25th amendment to the constitution, which allows for a president to be replaced by their vice-president, if they become incapable of doing their job.Failing that, they argued he should be impeached for a second time.Pelosi described Trump as “a very dangerous person who should not continue in office”.“This is urgent. This is an emergency of the highest magnitude,” Pelosi said.Several Democratic members of Congress drafted new articles of impeachment for inciting Wednesday’s violence and deliberating subverting US democracy.“What happened at the US Capitol yesterday was an insurrection against the United States, incited by President Trump. This president must not hold office one day longer. The quickest and most effective way – it can be done today – to remove this president from office would be for the Vice President to immediately invoke the 25th amendment,” Schumer said in a tweet.“If the Vice President and the Cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress must reconvene to impeach President Trump.”Charges for Trump’s second impeachment were drawn up by several Democratic congress members – Ilhan Omar, Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin and David Cicilline – accusing him of “wilfully inciting violence against the government of the United States” and warning he remained “a threat to national security, democracy and the constitution, if allowed to remain in office”.Use of the 25th amendment, on the grounds unfitness for office is a form of incapacity, would rely on the cooperation of Republicans including the vice-president, Mike Pence, who would take over the administration in its final two weeks. That seemed unlikely on Thursday.Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a frequent Republican critic of Trump, joined the calls for the 25th amendment to be invoked, saying in a video message: “The president must now relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily.”But the GOP leadership did not appear sufficiently shocked to jettison their leader, who was reportedly warmly received on a conference call with the Republican National Committee on Thursday morning.There was a handful of resignations by second-tier officials, including the transport secretary, Elaine Chao (married to the current Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell); the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Pottinger; the Northern Ireland envoy (and former White House chief of staff), Mick Mulvaney; and the first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham. But there was no sign yet of a sweeping exodus or mutiny that would be required to force the president from office.Trump loyalists in Congress and on Fox News quickly began circulating groundless conspiracy theories that disguised members of the leftist antifa movement had provoked the insurrection.The president himself made no public statements on Thursday, and after a call with the Republican National Committee spent part of the day awarding the presidential medal of freedom to two golf players and one Olympic athlete, one of them posthumously.Facebook imposed an indefinite ban on Trump, whose campaign has long used the platform to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. The decision may also have been influenced by the Democratic success in taking control of the Senate.Former administration officials were scathing about the president’s role, most notably the recently departed attorney general, William Barr, who said Trump was guilty of “betrayal of his office and supporters” by “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress.”.The former defence secretary James Mattis said Trump “fomented” the attack, intended “to subjugate American democracy by mob rule”.But current Republican leaders were much more guarded. McConnell said the blame for the attack lay with the “unhinged criminals” who carried it out “and with those who incited them” but did not name the president.Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s top congressional allies, called on the president to accept his own role in the violence, saying that Trump “needs to understand that his actions were the problem, not the solution”.But asked about calls for Trump to be removed from office, the South Carolina senator said: “I do not believe that is appropriate at this point. I’m looking for a peaceful transfer of power.”A YouGov poll of Republicans found 45% of them supported the storming of the Capitol, 2% more than those who opposed it.At least some of Trump’s leading supporters abroad sought to distance themselves, including Boris Johnson, who said it was “completely wrong” for Trump to “encourage people to storm the Capitol” and cast doubt on the election result.In Washington, law enforcement agencies tried to respond to widespread outrage over the apparent impunity of the insurrectionists (only 14 of whom had been arrested by Thursday afternoon) and the lack of adequate defences for a vital organ of government.McConnell said it was a “massive failure” and called for a full investigation. The congressional sergeant at arms, responsible for overall security in the building, resigned on Thursday but Pelosi called for the chief of the Capitol police, Steven Sund, to step down as well.Sund issued a statement saying the storming of the legislature was “unlike any I have ever experienced in my 30 years in law enforcement here” and argued that his officers had been spread thin by having to respond to two pipe bombs found near the Capitol at the same time as the assault.Pelosi also said she had not received a satisfactory reply from the defence secretary, Christopher Miller, on why the national guard was so slow to respond, arriving in significant numbers only after the Capitol was occupied.The army secretary, Ryan McCarthy, told reporters that he had expected Wednesday’s events to be like other recent protests, adding that Pentagon officials had not imagined a breach of the Capitol in their “wildest imagination”.The head of the Washington metropolitan police department also claimed: “There was no intelligence that suggests that there would be a breach of the US Capitol.” Critics responded that those responsible had telegraphed their intentions in advance.“It was all in the open on public social media sites, not to mention in the President’s speech,” John Sipher, a former senior CIA officer, commented on Twitter. 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As protecting our democracy becomes an urgent national focus during the final two weeks of Donald Trump’s term, a growing number of officials and citizens have begun debating whether to remove Trump from power, either through the 25th Amendment or impeachment. Regardless of what happens in these coming days, it is imperative that Congress ensure that this president never takes power again. The clearest and most constitutionally appropriate way to do this is for the House to impeach President Trump, and then for the Senate to vote to disqualify him from holding any future federal public office.The power of Congress to disqualify an impeached president from holding office has received less attention through history than the power of Congress to remove a president from office. The Constitution is clear that after a House majority vote to impeach and a two-thirds Senate vote to convict, the president is removed from office.Yet Article I Section VII clarifies that removal is not the only punishment impeachment can bring. It reads: “Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.” This clause shows definitively that the Senate can inflict a penalty that would prevent Trump from holding office again. Under established Senate practice, that vote to disqualify would require only a simple majority vote in the Senate, less than the two-thirds vote required for conviction.Two historical precedents have established this procedure. In 1862, a federal judge named West Hughes Humphreys was impeached by the House. When it came time for the Senate to pronounce judgement, the body determined that the decisions of whether to remove and whether to disqualify were separable. The Senate first voted by two-thirds majority to convict and remove Humphreys, and then took a second vote, under a simple majority requirement, to disqualify him from future federal office. In an eerie foreshadowing of what we just witnessed with Trump, one impeachment article accused Humphreys of acting “in disregard of his duties as a citizen…Humphreys endeavor[ed] by public speech to incite revolt and rebellion’ against the United States.”A second disqualification was voted upon in 1913 in a case involving federal judge Robert Archbald. Archbald was convicted by a two-thirds majority in the Senate, and then, in a separate vote, he was disqualified from holding future office on a simple majority vote of 39 to 35. In a later 1936 trial involving Judge Ritter, the Senate cited the Humphreys precedent for the simple majority requirement for disqualification, though ultimately the Senate did not impose the penalty of disqualification.These precedents show the Senate is permitted to disqualify President Trump from future officeholding on a majority vote if he is impeached and convicted. Disqualification is a severe punishment for a “high crime and misdemeanor,” and although it has been used in impeachments of federal judges, it has never been imposed on a US president. Now, however, we have crystal clear evidence that the president has engaged in conduct that requires this extreme punishment.On Wednesday, the president of the United States incited a mob to descend on Congress in order to stymie the vote to certify Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States. It was clearly a crime. The president, like all Americans, has a right to free speech. But the First Amendment does not protect the right to incite a violent riot.What is more crucial for the punishment of disqualification is that this was a “high crime,” meaning a gross abuse of power. Nothing is more important to a democracy than the peaceful transition of power between administrations. Without it, the country risks a collapse into the kind of violence we saw Wednesday as a way of life, not a momentary disruption.This week, Trump welcomed that violence, saying he “loved” those participating in the insurrection. He claimed that the nation had never seen an election “stolen” like this one. He added, “I know how you feel.” The president was not only stoking violence. He was undermining democracy.As the insurrectionists entered the Capitol, one declared “we are the people.” The rioters saw their actions as the rightful replacement for the constitutional way presidents are elected in this country. There was no better symbol of the threat to that legal process than that the electoral ballots themselves had to be ushered out of the Senate chamber to protect them from the rioters.The obligation of Congress—beyond just what it is allowed to do—in such a circumstance is to ensure that such an enemy of democracy and law never holds office again. Congress can do that by impeaching President Trump, convicting him, then disqualifying him from holding public office again. This disqualification would further deny Trump the ability to use his sizeable reelection fund to seek future office, a restriction which would place an important limit on the resources he has at his disposal to undermine democracy.Invoking the 25th Amendment would allow the Cabinet to remove a president “unable” to do the job—an important option in restoring our democracy. However, it is crucial to note that this removal would not affect his ability to run for office again. Only impeachment and a Senate vote to disqualify can do that, so it is essential that, regardless of the Cabinet’s actions, the Congress act to impeach, remove, and disqualify him.Even if the House does not impeach Trump within the next two weeks, Congress should still move to impeach and disqualify him after he has left office. There is an active scholarly debate on whether a former president can be impeached, and no court has yet definitively ruled on the matter. Still, Congress should attempt this approach after the two new Democratic senators from Georgia are seated to ensure it does everything in its power to keep Trump from threatening democracy in the future.On Wednesday, the Congress lived up to its proud democratic duty by reconvening to continue the process of certifying the election. But if Trump is allowed to take office again, what we saw might just be a dress rehearsal for broader efforts to destroy democracy and the rule of law. Disqualification would deny him the chance to even try to wreak such destruction.Corey Brettschneider is a political science professor at Brown. He is the author of The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents, and the editor of the new book The Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, part of his new series, Penguin Liberty More

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The FBI has appealed for people to help identify the Capitol rioters on Thursday, as some of the more prominent members of the pro-Trump mob began to be named online.
They include Jake Angeli, whose horned hat and furs drew the eye of many watching at home, and Richard Barnett, who was photographed sitting at Nancy Pelosi’s desk as a mob of Trump supporters besieged the Capitol building.
A total of 68 people were arrested on Wednesday, according to DC police, and just one of those was local to the area – a detail that reveals the mass of people who descended on DC for the protest.

Here are some of those prominently photographed or filmed inside the Capitol.
Jake Angeli More

World leaders have reacted with horror to the chaos that has consumed Washington, describing Wednesday’s insurrectionist attempt on the US Capitol building as “disgraceful”, “pitiful”, and “shocking”.
Prime ministers and presidents around the world urged US president Donald Trump and his supporters to accept the result of November’s presidential election. President-elect Joe Biden’s administration is set to be inaugurated in 14 days.
The US Congress on Thursday certified Biden as the next president, while a statement from Trump promised an “orderly transition” to a new administration even though “I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out.”
“A fundamental rule of democracy is that, after elections, there are winners and losers,” said Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. “Both have to play their role with decency and responsibility so that democracy itself remains the winner.”
Merkel said Trump had “not conceded his defeat since November, and that has prepared the atmosphere in which such violent events are possible”. The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, denounced the scenes as “the result of lies and yet more lies, of division and contempt for democracy, of hatred and rabble-rousing, including from the very highest level”. More

Jonathan Freedland and Kenya Evelyn discuss the chaotic scenes that took place in Washington DC on Wednesday. Plus, Sam Levine on how the Democrats flipped the Senate

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The outcome of the two Senate runoff elections in Georgia was meant to be the big news story of the week. Then, US democracy went into meltdown on Wednesday when a mob of rioters incited by President Trump stormed the Capitol building, leaving several people dead. This didn’t stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election win, but it did ask many questions about what democracy looks like in the US. Jonathan Freedland and Kenya Evelyn dissect what happens to Trump and his supporters now. Plus, Sam Levine explains the surprising results from Georgia. Send us your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

What took so long? “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” Maya Angelou counselled. Donald Trump’s keenest supporters believed him. But too many others, even among those who reviled him, nonetheless assumed that there were limits. They can no longer be complacent. The American carnage of Wednesday night – the storming of the Capitol by an armed and violent mob, incited by the president, in an attempt to terrorise Congress and stop the peaceful transfer of power – marked an extraordinary moment in US history. “If the post-American era has a start date, it is almost certainly today,” wrote Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.Yet this was merely the ultimate and undeniable proof of what was always evident: that this man is not only unfit for his office, he is also a danger to democracy while he retains it. He built his political success on lies, contempt for democratic standards, the stoking of divisions – most of all racial – and the glamorising of force. They were evident when he campaigned for the presidency, and more blatant when he talked of “very fine people” among the white supremacists of Charlottesville. When the House impeached him for abusing power for electoral purposes. When he lied that the election would be stolen, and then lied that it had been. When he called supporters to Washington. When he told them that they would “never take back our country with weakness” and urged them on to the Capitol.The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and others deserve no credit for belated pieties about the state of the Republic. All those who helped or “humoured” Mr Trump’s election-stealing attempts are culpable. Already expert in more genteel endeavours, such as voter suppression and gerrymandering, the Republican elites have enabled and encouraged Trumpism: standing at his side, acquitting him when impeached, staying silent, or amplifying his lies. Having invited in an arsonist and supplied him with accelerant, they offer a cup of water to douse the inferno.The urgent issue is how to deal with Mr Trump. No faith can be put in his last-minute promise of an orderly transition when he continues to foment rage. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has called for his immediate removal. Cabinet members are reportedly now discussing the use of the 25th amendment, which allows the replacement of an “unfit” president. But this is not about mere failings or incapacity: a better choice would be to begin impeachment proceedings. Action must be taken against Mr Trump, as it must against those he incited, to prevent him from running again and send a clear message to anyone tempted to follow.For the truly important issue is how to salvage democracy in America. While Wednesday may prove a wake-up call for some Trump voters, many are already explaining away events, or excusing them through false equivalences with the Black Lives Matter movement. Divisions run deep through American society and even its institutions. A full investigation is needed of the failure to protect the Capitol when extremists had openly talked of such a plan – in stark contrast to the intense security and aggressive treatment that greeted peaceful BLM protesters. Tens of millions of Americans now believe that the election was stolen: one report suggests that only a quarter of Republicans trust the result. Rightwing media have fostered lies, and social media allowed people to dwell in alternative political universes. Though Facebook has finally suspended the president’s account, the stable door is shutting long after disinformation galloped off into the distance. None of this will end when Joe Biden is inaugurated on 20 January.Democracy exists not in the provisions written down on paper, but so long as it is practised, which is to say, defended. The remarkable twin victories in the Georgia runoffs on Wednesday, giving the Democrats control of the Senate via the vice-president’s casting vote, were a welcome testimony to what is possible. But their importance is dwarfed by the threat looming over the system itself. The struggle is only just beginning. America has shown its people what it is. They should believe it – and act accordingly. More

The rally
11.50am Donald Trump addresses a crowd of thousands of supporters whom he has encouraged to come to Washington on the day of the planned congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in November’s presidential election. More