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Meet the House G.O.P. Freshmen Emerging as Some of the Party’s Sharpest Critics
by Aurelia Butler 13 January 2021, 01:17
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutliveLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsIncitement to Riot?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMeet the House G.O.P. Freshmen Emerging as Some of the Party’s Sharpest CriticsEven as many freshmen have avoided breaking with President Trump, some have called for a partywide reckoning most of their caucus’s leaders have shied away from.“We have to take a take a cold, hard look at ourselves and recognize that this is a real problem for our party,” Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, has said.Credit…Mic Smith/Associated PressJan. 12, 2021Updated 9:17 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Three days after Representative Peter Meijer was sworn into office, facing down a mob of violent rioters and a constitutional test, he broke with his party’s leaders and a majority of his Republican colleagues and voted to certify President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.Now, less than a week later, Mr. Meijer, a freshman lawmaker from Michigan, is considering breaking what has been the guiding orthodoxy of his party — loyalty to President Trump — and voting to impeach its leader.“What we saw on Wednesday left the president unfit for office,” Mr. Meijer said.Most of Mr. Meijer’s colleagues in the freshman House Republican class voted last week to overturn the election results, and some of the loudest in his cohort have rushed to embrace and elevate the president’s inflammatory brand of politics and conspiratorial impulses. But just over a week into his term, Mr. Meijer is among a handful of Republican newcomers who have emerged as leading voices calling for a partywide reckoning after the deadly riot incited by Mr. Trump even as most of their own conference’s leaders shy away from such talk.The blunt, chastening language of Mr. Meijer and his fellow freshman Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, in particular, has dramatized in one freshman class the vast gulf between the dueling wings of a conference fractured by the departing president’s demand for total loyalty.Ten freshman Republicans, most of them from swing districts, banded together to uphold the election out of a cohort of more than 40 lawmakers. On Wednesday, some, like Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa, took to Twitter to urge Mr. Trump to address the nation “and call for an end to this violence and disruption to our democratic process.”On Tuesday, as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon-backing freshman Republican from Georgia, thanked her supporters on Twitter for sending “INCREDIBLE amounts of support to me for standing strong in my objection on behalf of Republican voters who feel the election is wrong,” her colleagues were condemning the drive and pressing the party to put an end to such claims.“We have to take a cold, hard look at ourselves and recognize that this is a real problem for our party,” Ms. Mace said in an interview. “We reap what we sow. We saw and heard the violent rhetoric at the rally and look what ended up happening.”On a call among Republican House members on Monday, Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a hard-right freshman, suggested that some U.S. Capitol Police officers were participants in the riot. Ms. Mace shot back that she was disappointed the party was being led by conspiracy theorists, a swipe at approving comments Ms. Boebert and others in the conference previously made about QAnon.The past week has offered something of a nightmarish orientation for the Republican freshman lawmakers who voted to uphold the election. They have, both publicly and privately, expressed fury at their colleagues for emboldening rioters with bellicose language — and for following through on their pledges to throw out millions of lawfully cast ballots even after insurrectionists stormed the Capitol. Some are now themselves facing threats, and Mr. Meijer said in an op-ed in The Detroit News that he regretted not bringing his gun to Washington.Representative Tony Gonzales, Republican of Texas and a former Navy officer who voted to uphold the election, recounted to a local television station how he and other freshmen had tried to barricade the doors to the House chamber as the mob grew closer to reaching them.“Wow, wouldn’t this be something,” Mr. Gonzales recalled thinking. “I fight in Iraq and Afghanistan just to be killed in the House of Representatives.”“I was so distraught and distressed,” Ms. Mace said in an interview the day after the riot. “I woke up more heartbroken today than I was yesterday. More shocked, but also angrier than I was before. Pissed off that we allowed this to happen.”In an interview, Mr. Meijer recalled a conversation he had with a Republican colleague who believed voting to certify the election was the right thing to do, but feared that making such a move would endanger family members’ safety. Mr. Meijer described watching the lawmaker glued to one spot on the House floor for minutes, voting card in hand, contemplating what to do. The lawmaker eventually voted to overturn the election..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and at the ongoing fallout:This video takes a look inside the siege on the capitol. This timeline shows how a crucial two hour period turned a rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.House Democrats have begun impeachment proceedings. A look at how they might work.“It just broke my heart,” Mr. Meijer said.The vote, he said, instantly drew a clear “fault line” through the conference: between those who voted to uphold the election, and those who “knew what the most expedient vote was.”That fault line has extended through the conference’s leadership. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, announced on Tuesday that she would vote to impeach Mr. Trump, becoming only the second House Republican to do so and the first member of leadership to make such an announcement. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the minority whip, both voted to overturn the election results.“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” Ms. Cheney said in a statement.Ms. Cheney’s announcement will no doubt provide political cover for other Republicans in the conference to follow suit. In the days before the vote, Ms. Cheney circulated a 21-page memo warning Republicans that objecting to the results would “set an exceptionally dangerous precedent,” and as the tear gas cleared last Wednesday, she explicitly blamed Mr. Trump for the violence in remarks that other Republicans, including Ms. Mace and Mr. Meijer, began to echo.“Every accomplishment that the president had over the last four years has been wiped out,” Ms. Mace said on Fox News. “The outcome of the rally, some of the rhetoric, led to that violence.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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In Georgia, Trump’s Attacks on Election Still Haunt Republicans
by Aurelia Butler 12 January 2021, 23:39
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesHouse Introduces ChargeMcConnell Said to Support ChargeHow Impeachment Might Work25th Amendment ExplainedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyIn Georgia, Trump’s Attacks on Election Still Haunt RepublicansIn the aftermath of President Trump’s efforts to subvert the election, state officials face harassment and threats, and a district attorney is weighing an inquiry into the president’s actions.As absentee ballots were counted in Georgia, Joseph R. Biden Jr. overtook President Trump, eventually winning the state’s 16 electoral votes.Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesRichard Fausset and Jan. 12, 2021, 7:39 p.m. ETATLANTA — The impeachment charge that House Democrats have filed against President Trump stems from his role in inciting a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol last week. But included in the resolution is another element of Mr. Trump’s behavior that is also drawing condemnation as an abuse of presidential power: His pressure campaign to persuade Georgia officials to overturn his electoral loss in the state.Before inspiring a throng of supporters to attack the Capitol, Mr. Trump had previously sought to “subvert and obstruct” the results of his failed re-election effort, a draft article of impeachment released Monday reads, citing in particular the president’s extraordinary intervention in Georgia.Even if Democrats’ second effort to remove the president from office fails or fades, Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert the will of Georgia’s voters will continue to resonate, both for the president and for politicians in Georgia. State elections officials continue to face harassment and death threats. A number of Georgia Republicans are now blaming Mr. Trump’s baseless accusations of election fraud for the losses by the state’s two Republican senators this month.And in Atlanta, the Fulton County district attorney is weighing whether to start a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump for a phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the president exhorted him to “find” the votes that would deliver Mr. Trump victory.That call was part of a much broader push by Mr. Trump and his allies to subvert Georgia’s election results. The effort played out over two months and in the end was based on allegations of fraud that were consistently debunked by his fellow Republicans charged with overseeing the state’s election.Gabriel Sterling, one of the most outspoken of those officials, said in an interview this week that the president’s effort was both inappropriate and crude.“There was never an overarching strategy,” Mr. Sterling said, adding: “It was a series of tactical moves in an attempt to get a different outcome here. The president shouldn’t be trying to do things to put his thumb on the scale. I don’t care if it’s a Republican or a Democrat, no president should do that.”Mr. Trump’s relentless campaign to change the result first came to public attention in a startling act of intraparty discord six days after Election Day.Mr. Trump could face a criminal investigation in Georgia for exhorting top election official to “find” the votes that would deliver him victory.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesOn Nov. 9, the two Republican senators forced into Georgia runoff races, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, released a joint statement calling for the resignation of Mr. Raffensperger, a fellow Republican. The senators, who were both Trump loyalists, made hazy allegations that Mr. Raffensperger’s oversight of the election was marred by “mismanagement and lack of transparency.”An official in the secretary of state’s office, who requested anonymity because of the threats that were still coming in, said the office learned that same day that Mr. Trump was behind the statement; he had warned the two candidates that he would turn his Twitter account against them if they did not publicly call for Mr. Raffensperger to step down.The state official learned of the threat in a phone call with consultants from one of the two senators’ campaigns.There had been other, quieter attempts to move Mr. Raffensperger, a Trump supporter and lifelong Republican, more firmly and publicly into Mr. Trump’s camp. In January of last year, he rejected an offer to serve as honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign. He also rebuffed subsequent efforts to get him to publicly endorse the president, according to two state elections officials. The efforts, which Mr. Raffensperger rejected on the grounds that he needed to be seen as impartial, were first reported by ProPublica.The assault on Mr. Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, who also is a Republican, came as Mr. Trump watched his chances of victory melt away, with swing states counting mountains of mail-in absentee votes that tilted the race in favor of his Democratic challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr.In Georgia, David Shafer, the chair of the state Republican Party, assailed the vote-counting process in Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta. Soon, a succession of Trump allies and aides, some of them much more powerful than Mr. Shafer, began exerting pressure on state officials to overturn the election results.One of them was Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He called Mr. Raffensperger later that month, and asked him if he had the power to toss out mail-in votes from some counties, according to Mr. Raffensperger’s account of the call, which Mr. Graham has disputed.The president unleashed a barrage of tweets baselessly challenging his loss and calling for a special session of the Legislature to consider overturning the results. Conspiracy theories blossomed on the far-right fringes of the internet.On Dec. 1, Mr. Sterling, in an emotional news conference, implored Mr. Trump to stop claiming that the election had somehow been “rigged” against him.“Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language,” he said, expressing fury over the threats that election officials and poll workers were receiving. “It has to stop.”Shortly after the Nov. 3 election, Georgia’s two Republican senators called on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, to step down.Credit…Brynn Anderson/Associated PressIt did not. On Dec. 3, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani came to Georgia for a State Senate hearing and made a series of specious claims about voter fraud, even as officials from the secretary of state’s office debunked such claims at a separate hearing taking place just one floor below. The next day, the Trump campaign filed suit in Georgia to try to get the state’s election results overturned and was joined by the state party.On Dec. 5, Mr. Trump called Mr. Kemp to pressure him to call a special session of the Legislature to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in the state. Just hours later, the president again criticized Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger at a rally that was putatively intended to bolster the electoral chances of Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue. Two days later, after two recounts, Mr. Raffensperger certified Mr. Biden’s victory.By then, the schism within the party had widened. A senior official in the secretary of state’s office said at the time that the state party needed “to stop passing the buck for failing to deliver Georgia for Trump.”In the days before Christmas, Mr. Trump called the lead investigator for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, pressing the investigator to “find the fraud,” those with knowledge of the call have said. Around the same time, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, made a surprise visit to Cobb County, with Secret Service agents in tow, to view an audit in process there. (“It smelled of desperation,” Mr. Sterling said in the interview. “It felt stunt-ish.”)The pressure campaign culminated during a Jan. 2 call by Mr. Trump to Mr. Raffensperger, which was first reported by The Washington Post. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Mr. Trump said on the call, during which Mr. Raffensperger and his aides once again dismissed the baseless claims of fraud..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}The Trump ImpeachmentFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and at the ongoing fallout:This video takes a look inside the siege on the capitol. This timeline shows how a crucial two hour period turned a rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.House Democrats have begun impeachment proceedings. A look at how they might work.Of all of Mr. Trump’s efforts to change the Georgia results, it was this call, recorded and released to the public, that could end up causing him the most trouble. The impeachment resolution cites the call in asserting that the president “threatened the integrity of the Democratic system.”The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, implored Mr. Trump to stop what had become an incessant barrage of baseless allegations that the election had somehow been “rigged.”Credit…Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressOn Jan. 5, Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue lost their races, giving Democrats control of the Senate. A day later, Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol.The ramifications of Mr. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud continue in Georgia. Mr. Sterling said that his house, as well as Mr. Kemp’s, showed up on a website called “enemies of the people” that the F.B.I. concluded was part of an Iranian effort to disrupt the election.“I got doxxed again last night on Gab,” Mr. Sterling said Monday, referring to a site favored by right-wing extremists.Georgia Republicans were already confronting the daunting prospect of a Democratic Party reinvigorated by changing demographics and suburbanites’ growing distaste for Mr. Trump’s political style. Now they are left with a party badly split between the Trump supporters who continue to believe that the election was stolen from him and those who believe Mr. Trump’s fight to overturn the results was misguided.“I think that by President Trump going so far beyond even the date that Al Gore conceded hurt the Republican Party in the runoff,” said Martha Zoller, who chairs Georgia United Victory, the most prominent political action committee that backed Ms. Loeffler’s bid. “I think he had the right to pursue the avenues, but he should have called for peace and unity a lot sooner.”The legal ramifications of Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election here are uncertain — and complicated. Some legal scholars have said that Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Raffensperger may have violated state and federal laws, though many note that a charge may be difficult to pursue.A spokesman for Fani Willis, Fulton County’s new prosecutor, did not return calls seeking comment this week.In a Jan. 3 letter to Mr. Raffensperger, David Worley, a Democratic member of the state elections board, said that probable cause might exist that Mr. Trump violated a Georgia law concerning solicitation to commit election fraud. State law makes it illegal for anyone who “solicits, requests, commands, importunes” or otherwise encourages others to engage in election fraud.In an interview this week, Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law expert at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said that Ms. Willis was facing a difficult decision of whether to use her office’s time and resources to go after the president, given her significant challenges at home, including a spike in Atlanta’s crime rate.But Mr. Kreis argued that the nature of the debate might have changed since the mob attacked the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday.“Now it well might be worth her time,” he said, “because there’s been real life-and-death consequences for these lies, as well as the president attacking state and local officials to do his bidding to overturn the election in an anti-democratic thrust.”Astead W. Herndon and Nick Corasaniti contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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Congress Should Bar Trump From Ever Holding Office
by Aurelia Butler 12 January 2021, 09:00
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesHouse Introduces ChargeHow Impeachment Might Work25th Amendment ExplainedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyImpeachment Isn’t the Only Option Against TrumpCongress can invoke its constitutional power to bar the president from holding office again.Deepak Gupta and Mr. Gupta is the founder of an appellate litigation law firm in Washington, D.C. Mr. Beutler is the editor in chief of Crooked Media.Jan. 12, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Doug Mills/The New York TimesCongress should use its constitutional power to prohibit instigators and perpetrators of last week’s violent siege of the Capitol, including President Trump, from holding public office ever again.On Monday, House leaders introduced an article of impeachment against the president for “inciting violence against the government of the United States,” an obligatory action, given the gravity of the president’s transgression. But this is not the only route for ensuring accountability. The Constitution has another provision that is tailor-made for the unthinkable, traitorous events of Jan. 6 that goes beyond what impeachment can accomplish.Emerging from the wreckage of the Civil War, Congress was deeply concerned that former leaders of the Confederacy would take over state and federal offices to once again subvert the constitutional order. To prevent that from happening, Congress passed the 14th Amendment, which in Section 3 bars public officials and certain others who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution from serving in public office. Although little known today, Section 3 was used in the post-Civil War era to disqualify former rebels from taking office. And, in the wake of perhaps the boldest domestic attack on our nation’s democracy since the Civil War, Section 3 can once again serve as a critical tool to protect our constitutional order.The 14th Amendment gives Congress the power to enforce Section 3 through legislation. So Congress can immediately pass a law declaring that any person who has ever sworn to defend the Constitution — from Mr. Trump to others — and who incited, directed, or participated in the Jan. 6 assault “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” and is therefore constitutionally disqualified from holding office in the future.Congress can also decide how this legislation will be enforced by election officials and the courts, based on all the facts as they come out. The Constitution prohibits Congress from enacting so-called bills of attainder, which single out individuals for guilt. But, in addition to the legislation we suggest, Congress could also pass nonbinding sense-of-Congress resolutions that specify whom they intend to disqualify. This would provide a road map for election officials and judges, should any people named in those resolutions seek to run for or hold public office. And Congress can do this by a simple majority — far less of a hurdle than the two-thirds majority in the Senate that removing the president requires.We believe legislators of conscience should brandish this option not as a substitute for impeachment but as a complement to it. Senators shouldn’t be allowed to escape or indefinitely delay a vote on Mr. Trump’s conduct simply by running out the clock on his term. (The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has suggested no trial will happen before the inauguration.) Republicans should be on notice that whether or not they face a vote on conviction and removal of Mr. Trump, they will at the very least be compelled to vote by a Democratic-controlled Congress on barring Mr. Trump from ever holding public office again.This option also has power that the impeachment process lacks. As we learn more in the coming months about who is culpable for the siege, the ranks of those disqualified from office will likely swell. The legislation we envision would allow future courts and decision makers to apply the law after the investigations are complete. Eventually, we should have a 9/11 Commission-style report on what led to these events; the facts marshaled there can be deployed under the legislation we propose.We don’t suggest this course of action lightly. It would not have applied to a peaceful protest on the Capitol grounds — even one made to make lawmakers feel uncomfortable as they attended to their ministerial duties. It still would not have applied if the Jan. 6 protests had culminated only in street violence, as several other pro-Trump gatherings in recent months did. The First Amendment protects unruly dissent.But this was a unique event in American history: an obstruction by force of a constitutional process, at the very seat of our government. Parading the Confederate battle flag through the halls of Congress, the insurrectionists interrupted the certification of the election results for several hours and cemented this presidential transition as one marked by deadly violence. Washington’s mayor and congressional leaders concluded that it was necessary to call in the National Guard to quell the insurrection. Had a single additional layer of security failed, many elected officials, including the vice president and the speaker of the House — both of whom are constitutional officers — might have been killed. All to the end of preventing the winner of the 2020 election from taking power.Make no mistake: This was an insurrection. The 14th Amendment disqualifies its instigators from public office, whether the president is convicted in a Senate trial or not.Deepak Gupta is the founder of the appellate litigation firm Gupta Wessler in Washington and a lecturer at Harvard Law School. Brian Beutler is the editor in chief of Crooked Media, which covers politics and culture. He previously was an editor at The New Republic.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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The Bogusness of Anti-Impeachment Republicans
by Aurelia Butler 12 January 2021, 09:00
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Bogusness of Anti-Impeachment RepublicansSuddenly they like “unity” and fear “divisiveness.” Where was that spirit when election results were being counted?Opinion ColumnistJan. 12, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETPolice caution tape blocking a stairwell inside the U.S Capitol Building on Jan. 9.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesThe Republican Party has devised its response to the push to impeach the president over his role in the attack on the Capitol last week, and it is so cynical as to shock the conscience.“Now the Democrats are going to try to remove the president from office just seven days before he is set to leave anyway,” said Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who voted with 146 other Republicans in Congress not to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. “I do not see how this unifies the country.”The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, also said that impeaching the president “will only divide our country more.”“As leaders, we must call on our better angels and refocus our efforts on working directly for the American people,” McCarthy said in a statement given two days after he also voted not to accept the results of a free and fair election in which his favored candidate lost.Senator Ted Cruz of Texas helped lead the Senate attempt to object to Joe Biden’s victory. “My view is Congress should fulfill our responsibility under the Constitution to consider serious claims of voter fraud,” he said last Monday. Now, he too wants unity. “The attack at the Capitol was a despicable act of terrorism and a shocking assault on our democratic system,” he said in the aftermath of the violence, as calls to impeach the president grew louder and louder. “We must come together and put this anger and division behind us.”I’m reminded, here, of one particular passage from Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 address at Cooper Union in Manhattan, in which he criticized the political brinkmanship of Southern elites who blamed their Northern opponents for their own threats to break the union over slavery.But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”There are a handful of Senate Republicans, like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who are open to impeachment. But much of the Republican response is exactly this kind of threat: If you hold President Trump accountable for his actions, then we won’t help you unify the country.Or, as another Republican, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, said on Twitter,Those calling for impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment in response to President Trump’s rhetoric this week are themselves engaging in intemperate and inflammatory language and calling for action that is equally irresponsible and could well incite further violence.These cries of divisiveness aren’t just the crocodile tears of bad-faith actors. They serve a purpose, which is to pre-emptively blame Democrats for the Republican partisan rancor that will follow after Joe Biden is inaugurated next week. It is another way of saying that they, meaning Democrats, shot first, so we, meaning Republicans, are absolved of any responsibility for our actions. If Democrats want some semblance of normalcy — if they want to be able to govern — then the price for Republicans is impunity for Trump.House Democrats have already introduced their resolution to impeach the president, formally charging President Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the attack on the Capitol. There is still a ways to go in this process, but it is a stronger start than I expected. But there may still be some hesitation about taking the most aggressive stance, as evidenced by Majority Whip James Clyburn’s proposal to hold off on a trial until after the first 100 days of the Biden administration.This would be a mistake.There is no way past this crisis — and yes, we are living through a crisis — except through it. The best way to push forward is as aggressively as possible. Anything less sends the signal that this moment isn’t as urgent as it actually is. And as we move closer to consequences for those responsible, we should continue to ignore the cries that accountability is “divisive.” Not because they’re false, but because they’re true.Accountability is divisive. That’s the point. If there is a faction of the Republican Party that sees democracy itself as a threat to its power and influence, then it has to be cut off from the body politic. It needs to be divided from the rest of us, lest it threaten the integrity of the American republic more than it already has. Marginalizing that faction — casting Trump and Trumpism into the ash heap of history — will be divisive, but it is the only choice we have.This does not mean we must cast out the 74 million Americans who voted for the president, but it does mean we must repudiate the lies, cruelty and cult of personality on which Trump built his movement. It means Republicans have to acknowledge the truth — that Joe Biden won in a free and fair election — and apologize to their voters and to the country for helping to stoke the madness that struck at the Capitol.The alternative is a false unity that leaves the wound of last Wednesday to fester until the infection gets even worse than it already is.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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House Sets Impeachment Vote to Charge Trump With Incitement
by Aurelia Butler 12 January 2021, 01:33
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesHouse Introduces ChargeHow Impeachment Might Work25th Amendment ExplainedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHouse Sets Impeachment Vote to Charge Trump With IncitementDemocrats are planning a Tuesday vote to formally call on the vice president to wrest power from President Trump and a Wednesday impeachment vote if he does not.Capitol Police officers standing guard on Monday outside the Speaker’s Lobby of the House chamber at the Capitol.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 11, 2021Updated 9:33 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump on Monday for his role in inflaming a mob that attacked the Capitol, scheduling a Wednesday vote to charge the president with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” if Vice President Mike Pence refused to strip him of power first.Moving with exceptional speed, top House leaders began summoning lawmakers still stunned by the attack back to Washington, promising the protection of National Guard troops and Federal Air Marshal escorts after last week’s stunning security failure. Their return set up a high-stakes 24-hour standoff between two branches of government.As the impeachment drive proceeded, federal law enforcement authorities accelerated efforts to fortify the Capitol ahead of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The authorities announced plans to deploy up to 15,000 National Guard troops and set up a multilayered buffer zone with checkpoints around the building by Wednesday, just as lawmakers are to debate and vote on impeaching Mr. Trump.Federal authorities also said they were bracing for a wave of armed protests in all 50 state capitals and Washington in the days leading up to the inauguration.“I’m not afraid of taking the oath outside,” Mr. Biden said Monday, referring to a swearing-in scheduled to take place on a platform on the west side of the Capitol, in the very spot where rioters marauded last week, beating police officers and vandalizing the building.Mr. Biden signaled more clearly than before that he would not stand in the way of the impeachment proceeding, telling reporters in Newark, Del., that his primary focus was trying to minimize the effect an all-consuming trial in the Senate might have on his first days in office.He said he had consulted with lawmakers about the possibility they could “bifurcate” the proceedings in the Senate, such that half of each day would be spent on the trial and half on the confirmation of his cabinet and other nominees.In the House, a vote was scheduled for Tuesday evening to first formally call on Mr. Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. Republicans had objected on Monday to unanimously passing the resolution, which asked the vice president to declare “president Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting president.”The House is slated to begin debate on the impeachment resolution on Wednesday morning, marching toward a vote late in the day unless Mr. Pence intervenes beforehand.“The president’s threat to America is urgent, and so too will be our action,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said, outlining a timetable that will most likely leave Mr. Trump impeached one week to the day after he encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol as lawmakers met to formalize Mr. Biden’s victory.The vice president had already indicated that he was unlikely to act to force the president aside, and no one in either party expected Mr. Trump to step down. With that in mind, Democrats had already begun preparing a lengthier impeachment report documenting the president’s actions and the destruction that followed to accompany their charge.They were confident they had the votes to make Mr. Trump the first president ever to be impeached twice.The impeachment article invoked the 14th Amendment, the post-Civil War-era addition to the Constitution that prohibits anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States from holding future office. Lawmakers also cited specific language from Mr. Trump’s speech last Wednesday riling up the crowd, quoting him saying, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”The Republican Party was fracturing over the coming debate, as some agreed with Democrats that Mr. Trump should be removed and many others were standing behind the president and his legions of loyal voters. They were also fighting among themselves, with many Republicans furious over what took place a week ago and blaming their own colleagues and leaders for having contributed to the combustible atmosphere that allowed a pro-Trump rally to morph into a deadly siege.Unlike Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, in 2019, few Republicans were willing to muster a defense of Mr. Trump’s actions, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top House Republican, privately told his conference that the president deserved some blame for the violence, according to two people familiar with his remarks. Mr. McCarthy remained personally opposed to impeachment and tried to hold his conference together during a lengthy call on Monday afternoon.But as many as a dozen Republicans were said to be considering joining Democrats to impeach, including Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican.“It’s something we’re strongly considering at this point,” said Representative Peter Meijer, a freshman Republican from Michigan, told a Fox affiliate in his home state. “I think what we saw on Wednesday left the president unfit for office.”Mr. Trump gave his party little direction or reason to rally around him. Ensconced at the White House and barred from Twitter, he offered no defense of himself or the armed assailants who overtook the Capitol, endangering the lives of congressional leaders, their staffs and his own vice president.Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security, became the latest cabinet official to resign in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, stepping down just nine days before he was expected to help coordinate the security at the inauguration.If Mr. Trump is impeached by the House, which now seems virtually certain, he would then face trial in the Senate, which requires all senators be in the chamber while the charges are being considered. Democrats had briefly considered trying to delay an impeachment trial until the spring, to buy Mr. Biden more time without the cloud of such a proceeding hanging over the start of his presidency, but by late Monday, most felt they could not justify such a swift impeachment and then justify a delay.Still, the timing of a trial remained unclear because the Senate was not currently in session. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Democrat, was considering trying to use emergency procedures to force the chamber back before Jan. 20, a senior Democratic aide said, but doing so would take the consent of his Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.House leaders said the timing and outcome of any Senate trial was secondary to their sense of urgency to charge Mr. Trump with crimes against the country.“Whether impeachment can pass the United States Senate is not the issue,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, told reporters. “The issue is, we have a president who most of us believe participated in encouraging an insurrection and attack on this building, and on democracy and trying to subvert the counting of the presidential ballot.”Other accountability efforts were underway in the shadow of the drive to punish Mr. Trump. Law enforcement fanned out across the country to track down and arrest members of the mob and heavily fortified the Capitol, where National Guard troops clad in camouflage uniforms roamed the ornate corridors and patrolled the sidewalks outside.Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio said the Capitol Police were investigating roughly a dozen of their own officers and had suspended two for potentially aiding the insurrectionists. One took selfies with those laying waste to the Capitol; another donned a “Make America Great Again” cap and potentially gave them directions, Mr. Ryan said.“Any incidents of Capitol Police facilitating or being part of what happened, we need to know that,” he said.Progressive lawmakers called for investigations and possible expulsions of Republicans who had supported Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the election and helped stoke the violence. More moderate Democrats discussed plans to try to ostracize them going forward — including by refusing to sign onto their legislative efforts or routine requests — because they were likely to remain in Congress. Republicans stoking the bogus claims of election theft themselves were mostly unapologetic and insisted their actions had nothing to do with the violence done in Mr. Trump’s name.“There may well be a vote on impeachment on Wednesday,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, told reporters.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesThe four-page impeachment article charges Mr. Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” when he sowed false claims about election fraud and encouraged his supporters at a rally outside the White House to take extraordinary measures to stop the counting of electoral votes underway at the Capitol. A short time later, rioters mobbed the building, ransacking the seat of American government and killing a Capitol Police officer. (At least four others died as a result of injuries or medical emergencies on Capitol grounds.)“In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government,” the article read. “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.”Members of the Maryland National Guard next to a statue of President Abraham Lincoln in the Capitol’s crypt on Monday.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesModern presidential impeachments have been drawn-out affairs, allowing lawmakers to collect evidence, hone arguments and hear the president’s defense over the course of months. When the Democratic-led House impeached Mr. Trump the first time, it took nearly three months, conducting dozens of witness interviews, compiling hundreds of pages of documents and producing a detailed case in a written report running 300 pages.It appeared this time that the House planned to do so in less than a week, with little more evidence than the fast accumulating public record of cellphone videos, photographs, police and journalistic accounts, and the words of Mr. Trump himself.“To those who would say, ‘Why do it now, there are only nine days left the president’s term?’” said Joe Neguse of Colorado, who has been drafting messaging guidance for the party. “I would say, ‘There are nine days in the president’s term.’”Mr. Trump’s most outspoken defenders opposed impeachment, though most did not explicitly defend his conduct. Many of them who just last week backed his drive to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory and voted to toss out legitimate results from key battleground states, argued that to impeach the president now would only further divide the country.In a letter to colleagues, Mr. McCarthy wrote that impeachment would “have the opposite effect of bringing our country together when we need to get America back on a path towards unity and civility.” He tried to point Republicans toward possible alternatives, including censure, a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack, changing the law that governs the electoral counting process that rioters disrupted and electoral integrity legislation.“Please know I share your anger and your pain,” he wrote. “Zip ties were found on staff desks in my office. Windows were smashed in. Property was stolen. Those images will never leave us — and I thank our men and women in law enforcement who continue to protect us and are working to bring the sick individuals who perpetrated these attacks to justice.”Some moderate Democrats were growing uneasy about the implications of such fast and punitive action, fearful both of the consequences for Mr. Biden’s agenda during his first days in office and of further igniting violence across the country among Mr. Trump’s most extreme supporters. They tried to cobble together support for a bipartisan censure resolution instead, but it appeared it might be too late to stop the momentum in favor of impeachment.Ms. Pelosi shut the idea down during her private call with Democrats, saying that censure “would be an abdication of our responsibility,” according to an official familiar with her remarks.Reporting was contributed by More
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Why We Are Introducing an Article of Impeachment
by Aurelia Butler 11 January 2021, 09:00
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy We Are Introducing an Article of ImpeachmentOne of the authors of the impeachment article against President Trump makes his case.Mr. Cicilline is a U.S. representative and a member of the House Judiciary Committee.Jan. 11, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesSince his resounding defeat in the presidential election in November, Donald Trump has done everything but concede to the democratic will of the American people. He unleashed an avalanche of lies and baseless claims of fraud — conspiracy theories that filled his supporters with a delusional belief that the election had been stolen from him. He filed a bevy of absurd lawsuits. He attempted to cajole and intimidate officials at all levels of government into subverting the election and keeping him in office. And then, running out of recourse, legitimate and illegitimate, he incited an insurrection against the government and the Constitution that he swore to uphold.The attempted coup at the United States Capitol last Wednesday, which took place as lawmakers inside counted the electoral votes that would formalize Joe Biden’s overwhelming election by the American people, marks one of the lowest points in our country’s 245-year experiment in democracy.From Andrew Jackson to Richard Nixon, we have seen presidents abuse their power, but we had never witnessed an American president incite a violent mob on the citadel of our democracy in a desperate attempt to cling to power.We cannot let this go unanswered. With each day, Mr. Trump grows more and more desperate. We should not allow him to menace the security of our country for a second longer.Once the House opens for legislative business, my co-authors — Representatives Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin — and I will introduce an article of impeachment to remove Mr. Trump from office for incitement of insurrection.As lawmakers who have impeached this president once before, we do not take this responsibility lightly. In fact, it was not our first choice of action. In the midst of last Wednesday’s siege, we were among those that asked Vice President Mike Pence to convene the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to quickly remove Mr. Trump from office. We have called on the president to resign.Days have passed, and it is clear that neither of those possibilities will be realized. So it is Congress’s responsibility to act.The American people witnessed Mr. Trump’s actions for themselves. We all saw his speech on Jan. 6. We watched his fanatics storm the Capitol at his request. Five people died, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer and four of the president’s supporters. We fear what Mr. Trump may do with his remaining time in office.That is why we believe the article of impeachment should be voted on as soon as possible. It is true that even after we act, Senator Mitch McConnell may, as he did one year ago, try to prevent a conviction in the U.S. Senate. It is also true that a trial might extend into the first days of the Biden administration.Neither of those possibilities should deter us in our work. Some argue that another impeachment trial would further divide our country and further inflame Trump supporters. But the truth is that we do not have a choice. This impeachment charge is meant to defend the integrity of the republic. Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress must attend to the duties of their oath. Failing to act would set an irresponsibly dangerous precedent for future presidents who are about to leave office.Further, there can be no healing of the divisions in our country without justice for the man most responsible for this horrific insurrection. The president must be held accountable. That can happen only by impeaching him for a second time and convicting him in the Senate. A conviction that would allow Congress to prohibit him from ever serving in federal office again.What happened last Wednesday was an abomination. There is no question about that. There is also no question that Mr. Trump becomes more of a threat to public safety by the moment.The only question now is what Congress will do about it.David N. Cicilline (@davidcicilline) is a member of the Democratic Party and House Judiciary Committee who has represented Rhode Island’s First Congressional District since 2011. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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House Moves to Force Trump Out, Vowing Impeachment if Pence Won’t Act
by Aurelia Butler 11 January 2021, 02:18
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHouse Moves to Force Trump Out, Vowing Impeachment if Pence Won’t ActSpeaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to strip President Trump of power, and move to impeach the president if he refused.House Democrats effectively gave the vice president a final ultimatum: use his power under the Constitution to force President Trump aside or make him the first president in American history to be impeached twice.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesNicholas Fandos, Peter Baker and Jan. 10, 2021Updated 10:18 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The House moved on two fronts on Sunday to try to force President Trump from office, escalating pressure on the vice president to strip him of power and committing to quickly begin impeachment proceedings against him for inciting a mob that violently attacked the seat of American government.In a letter to colleagues, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said the House would move forward on Monday with a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, and wrest the powers of the presidency. She called on Mr. Pence to respond “within 24 hours” and indicated she expected a Tuesday vote on the resolution.Next, she said, the House would bring an impeachment case to the floor. Though she did not specify how quickly it would move, leading Democrats have suggested they could press forward on a remarkably quick timetable, charging Mr. Trump by midweek with “high crimes and misdemeanors.”“In protecting our Constitution and our democracy, we will act with urgency, because this president represents an imminent threat to both,” she wrote. “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this president is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”Ms. Pelosi’s actions effectively gave Mr. Pence, who is said to be opposed to the idea, an ultimatum: use his power under the Constitution to force Mr. Trump out by declaring him unable to discharge his duties, or make him the first president in American history to be impeached twice.Far from capitulating, Mr. Trump made plans to proceed as if the last five earth-shattering days had simply not happened at all. But momentum in Washington was shifting decisively against him.More than 210 of the 222 Democrats in the House — nearly a majority — had already signed on to an impeachment resolution by Sunday afternoon, registering support for a measure that asserted that Mr. Trump would “remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution” if he was not removed in the final 10 days of his term. A second Republican senator, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, said he should resign immediately, joining Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. And a Republican House member hinted more clearly than before that he could vote to impeach, even as he cautioned that it could backfire and further galvanize Mr. Trump’s supporters.With few Democrats hopeful Mr. Pence would act, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the party’s No. 3, said the House could vote to impeach Mr. Trump by Wednesday, one week before Inauguration Day. Lawmakers were put on notice to return to Washington, and their leaders consulted with the Federal Air Marshal Service and police on how to safely move them back into a Capitol that was ransacked in a shocking security failure less than a week ago.“If we are the people’s house, let’s do the people’s work and let’s vote to impeach this president,” Mr. Clyburn said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The Senate will decide later what to do with that — an impeachment.”Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, said the House could vote to impeach by midweek.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. Clyburn argued in favor of delaying the start of any Senate trial for several months to allow President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to take office without the cloud of an all-consuming impeachment drama. It would be nearly impossible to start a trial before Jan. 20, and delaying it further would allow the House to deliver a stinging indictment of the president without impeding Mr. Biden’s ability to form a cabinet and confront the spiraling coronavirus crisis.“Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” Mr. Clyburn, an influential ally of Mr. Biden, said in another interview on CNN.The uncertainty underscored how little precedent those seeking to contain the president had to guide them. No president has been impeached in the final days of his term, or with the prospect of a trial after he leaves office — and certainly not just days after lawmakers themselves were attacked.A two-thirds majority is needed to convict and remove a president in the Senate. But if he were found guilty, a simple majority of the Senate could then bar Mr. Trump from holding office in the future.Mr. Biden has tried to keep a distance from the impeachment issue. He spoke privately Friday with Ms. Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat. But publicly he has said that the decision rests with Congress, and that he intends to remain focused on the work of taking over the White House and the government’s coronavirus response.“In 10 days, we move forward and rebuild — together,” Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter on Sunday.At the White House, Mr. Trump remained out of sight for a fourth straight day and made no public comment on either the assault on the Capitol or the brewing impeachment threat. The White House announced instead that he would travel on Tuesday to Alamo, Texas, to promote his border wall as part of a series of activities highlighting what he sees as the achievements of the last four years.Otherwise, the basic work of the final days of a presidential term had essentially been halted. A slew of pardons that were under discussion were put on hold after the riot, according to people informed about the deliberations. And around the White House, the president’s advisers hoped he would let go of giving himself a pardon, saying it would look terrible given what had taken place.Among those said to be furious with the president was Melania Trump, the first lady. While she has stayed quiet publicly, people close to the situation said she was upset with her husband for what had taken place, as well as his decision not to attend Mr. Biden’s inauguration.The hearse carrying Officer Brian Sicknick of the U.S. Capitol Police, who was killed in the Capitol riot, passing in front of the White House on Sunday.Credit…Erin Scott for The New York TimesOther than a video message he posted on Thursday night, Mr. Trump has said nothing about the attack since its conclusion and taken no responsibility for it, nor has he said anything publicly about the U.S. Capitol Police officer killed by the mob. Only after much criticism did he order flags lowered to half-staff at the White House and other federal facilities on Sunday in honor of the officer and another who Capitol Police said had died off duty days after responding to the riot at the Capitol.In past furors, any anger within his own party tended to fade with passing days, but this time, the disenchantment among many Republicans appeared to be hardening, particularly with new videos emerging, including one showing the mob dragging a police officer down the steps outside the Capitol and beating him.“The more time, images, and stories removed from Wednesday the worse it gets,” Josh Holmes, a longtime adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, wrote on Twitter. “If you’re not in a white hot rage over what happened by now you’re not paying attention.”It was that fury driving Democrats forward with stunning speed.The four-page impeachment article that had gained overwhelming support among Democrats — written by Representatives David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of California — was narrowly tailored to Mr. Trump’s role “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States.” Democrats involved in the process said they had drafted the text with input from some Republicans, though they declined to name them.None were expected to join as a co-sponsor before it was introduced on Monday, but Democrats said multiple House Republicans were privately discussing voting to impeach. When the House impeached Mr. Trump in 2019 for a pressure campaign on Ukraine to smear Mr. Biden, not a single Republican supported the charges.“I’ll vote the right way, you know, if I’m presented with that,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.The House indictment, which lawmakers and aides cautioned was still subject to change, would squarely blame for the rampage on Mr. Trump, stating that his encouragement was “consistent” with prior efforts to “subvert and obstruct” the election certification. That would include a Jan. 2 phone call pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the votes he needed to claim victory in a state Mr. Biden clearly and legally won.“It was an attack on our country and our democracy,” Mr. Cicilline said in an interview. “We simply cannot just allow this to stand unaddressed.”More details emerged on Sunday about Mr. Trump’s role, which could shape the debate about impeachment. The president was deeply involved in the planning of the rally on Wednesday where he exhorted thousands of followers to march to the Capitol and demonstrate strength. He personally helped select who would speak and what music would play, according to people briefed on how the event came together.Mr. Trump’s supporters as he spoke before they stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesThe president had been excited about the event for days, more focused on that and trying to overturn the Electoral College vote count than anything else. Heading into Wednesday, some advisers privately said Mr. Trump appeared to believe that Mr. Pence could legally hand him the election in his role presiding over the vote count.At one point, Mr. Trump told the vice president that he had spoken with Mark Martin, the former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, who he said had told him that Mr. Pence had that power. Mr. Pence had assured Mr. Trump that he did not. Mr. Trump made the vice president defend his rationale in a meeting with lawyers that Rudolph W. Giuliani had helped line up.Both parties conceded they had no clear picture of how many senators in the party might ultimately vote to convict Mr. Trump.Mr. Toomey said Mr. Trump had “spiraled down into a kind of madness” since the election and had effectively “disqualified himself” from ever running for office again. But a day after he called Mr. Trump’s conduct “impeachable,” Mr. Toomey argued an impeachment would be impractical with Mr. Trump already headed for the exit.“I think the best way for our country, Chuck, is for the president to resign and go away as soon as possible,” he told the host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I acknowledge that may not be likely, but I think that would be best.”In speaking with associates about the prospect of another impeachment, Mr. Trump was hit with the reality that few people from his defense team in last year’s Senate trial would be part of any new proceeding.Jay Sekulow, who has served as his lead personal lawyer, and two other private lawyers, Marty Raskin and Jane Raskin, will not participate in a future impeachment defense, according to a person briefed on the planning, nor will Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, or Patrick F. Philbin, his deputy.This time, only a few of his allies on Capitol Hill have offered to speak up in defense as well. Among those who have, many have used calls for “unity” to argue against impeachment or calling for Mr. Trump’s resignation. In most cases, the lawmakers adamant that Democrats should let the country “move on” were among those who, even after Wednesday’s violence, voted to toss out electoral results in key swing states Mr. Biden won based on claims of widespread voter fraud that courts and the states themselves said were bogus.“The Democrats are going to try to remove the president from office just seven days before he is set to leave anyway,” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said on Fox News. “I do not see how that unifies the country.”Michael D. Shear More
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What Trump Told Supporters Before Mob Stormed Capitol
by Aurelia Butler 10 January 2021, 23:00
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyIncitement to Riot? What Trump Told Supporters Before Mob Stormed CapitolHere is a closer look at what the president said at a rally of his supporters, which is a central focus of the impeachment case being prepared against him.In a speech just before the riot at the Capitol on Wednesday, President Trump told his supporters that they would have to “fight much harder.”Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesJan. 10, 2021Updated 7:00 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The speech that President Trump delivered to his supporters just before they attacked the Capitol last week is a central focus as House Democrats prepare an article of impeachment against him for inciting the deadly riot.Mr. Trump had urged supporters to come to Washington for a “Save America March” on Wednesday, when Congress would ceremonially count President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s win, telling them to “be there, will be wild!” At a rally just before the violence, he repeated many of his falsehoods about how the election was stolen, then dispatched the marchers to the Capitol as those proceedings were about to start.Here are some notable excerpts from Mr. Trump’s remarks, with analysis.Trump urged his supporters to ‘fight much harder’ against ‘bad people’ and ‘show strength’ at the Capitol.“Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder. …“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”The president’s speech was riddled with violent imagery and calls to fight harder than before. By contrast, he made only a passing suggestion that the protest should be nonviolent, saying, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”During Mr. Trump’s impeachment last year, one of his defenses was that the primary accusation against him — that he abused his power by withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to get its president to announce a corruption investigation into Mr. Biden — was not an ordinary crime, so it did not matter even if it were true. Most legal specialists said that made no difference for impeachment purposes, but in any case that argument would not be a defense here. Several laws clearly make it a crime to incite a riot or otherwise try to get another person to engage in a violent crime against property or people.Trump told the crowd that ‘very different rules’ applied.“When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do, and I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to.”Whipping up anger against Republicans who were not going along with his plan for subverting the election, like Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump told the crowd that “different rules” now applied. At the most obvious level, the president was arguing that what he wanted Mr. Pence to do — reject the state-certified Electoral College results — would be legitimate, but the notion of “very different rules” applying carried broader overtones of extraordinary permission as well. (“RINO” is a term of abuse used by highly partisan Republicans against more moderate colleagues they deem to be “Republicans in Name Only.”)Trump insinuated that Republican officials, including Pence, would endanger themselves by accepting Biden’s win.“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so, because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. … And I actually — I just spoke to Mike. I said: ‘Mike, that doesn’t take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage.’”“I also want to thank our 13 most courageous members of the U.S. Senate, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Ron Johnson, Senator Josh Hawley. … Senators have stepped up. We want to thank them. I actually think, though, it takes, again, more courage not to step up, and I think a lot of those people are going to find that out. And you better start looking at your leadership, because your leadership has led you down the tubes.”Mr. Trump twice told the crowd that Republicans who did not go along with his effort to overturn the election — Mr. Pence as well as senators like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who did not join in the performative objections led by Mr. Hawley and Mr. Cruz — were actually the ones being courageous. In context, the president’s implication is that they were putting themselves at risk because it would be safer to go along with what he wanted. During the ensuing riot, the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”Trump suggested that he wanted his supporters to stop the certification of Biden’s electoral win, not just protest it.“We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal. …“You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can’t let that happen. These are the facts that you won’t hear from the fake news media. It’s all part of the suppression effort. They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it. …“We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”Two months after he lost the election, Mr. Trump repeatedly told his followers that they could still stop Mr. Biden from becoming president if they “fight like hell,” a formulation that suggested they act and change things, not merely raise their voices in protest.As he dispatched his supporters into what became deadly chaos, Trump falsely told them that he would come, too.Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you. … We are going to the Capitol, and we are going to try and give — the Democrats are hopeless, they are never voting for anything, not even one vote, but we are going to try — give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re try — going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”As he sicced his supporters on Congress, Mr. Trump assured them that he would personally accompany them to the Capitol. In fact, as several of his followers and police officers were being injured or dying in the ensuing chaos, the president was watching the violence play out on television from the safety of the White House.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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