JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, July 14, 2025

Trump impeached for historic second time

by

1642 days ago
20210114
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signs the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in an engrossment ceremony before transmission to the Senate for trial on Capitol Hill, Washington, yesterday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signs the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump in an engrossment ceremony before transmission to the Senate for trial on Capitol Hill, Washington, yesterday.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

WASH­ING­TON—Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump was im­peached by the US House for a his­toric sec­ond time yes­ter­day, charged with “in­cite­ment of in­sur­rec­tion” over the dead­ly mob siege of the Capi­tol in a swift and stun­ning col­lapse of his fi­nal days in of­fice.

With the Capi­tol se­cured by armed Na­tion­al Guard troops in­side and out, the House vot­ed 232-197 to im­peach Trump. The pro­ceed­ings moved at light­ning speed, with law­mak­ers vot­ing just one week af­ter vi­o­lent pro-Trump loy­al­ists stormed the US Capi­tol af­ter the pres­i­dent’s calls for them to “fight like hell” against the elec­tion re­sults.

Ten Re­pub­li­cans fled Trump, join­ing De­moc­rats who said he need­ed to be held ac­count­able and warned omi­nous­ly of a “clear and present dan­ger” if Con­gress should leave him unchecked be­fore De­mo­c­rat Joe Biden’s in­au­gu­ra­tion.

Trump is the on­ly US pres­i­dent to be twice im­peached. It was the most bi­par­ti­san pres­i­den­tial im­peach­ment in mod­ern times, more so than against Bill Clin­ton in 1998.

The Capi­tol in­sur­rec­tion stunned and an­gered law­mak­ers, who were sent scram­bling for safe­ty as the mob de­scend­ed, and it re­vealed the fragili­ty of the na­tion’s his­to­ry of peace­ful trans­fers of pow­er. The ri­ot al­so forced a reck­on­ing among some Re­pub­li­cans, who have stood by Trump through­out his pres­i­den­cy and large­ly al­lowed him to spread false at­tacks against the in­tegri­ty of the 2020 elec­tion.

House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi in­voked Abra­ham Lin­coln and the Bible, im­plor­ing law­mak­ers to up­hold their oath to de­fend the con­sti­tu­tion from all en­e­mies, for­eign “and do­mes­tic.”

She said of Trump: “He must go, he is a clear and present dan­ger to the na­tion that we all love.”

Holed up at the White House, watch­ing the pro­ceed­ings on TV, Trump took no re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the bloody ri­ot seen around the world, but is­sued a state­ment urg­ing “NO vi­o­lence, NO law­break­ing and NO van­dal­ism of any kind” to dis­rupt Biden’s as­cen­sion to the White House.

In the face of the ac­cu­sa­tions against him and with the FBI warn­ing of more vi­o­lence, Trump said, “That is not what I stand for, and it is not what Amer­i­ca stands for. I call on ALL Amer­i­cans to help ease ten­sions and calm tem­pers.”

Trump was first im­peached by the House in 2019 over his deal­ings with Ukraine, but the Sen­ate vot­ed in 2020 to ac­quit. He is the first to be im­peached twice. None has been con­vict­ed by the Sen­ate, but Re­pub­li­cans said yes­ter­day that could change in the rapid­ly shift­ing po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment as of­fice­hold­ers, donors, big busi­ness and oth­ers peel away from the de­feat­ed pres­i­dent.

The soon­est Re­pub­li­can Sen­ate leader Mitch Mc­Connell would start an im­peach­ment tri­al is next Tues­day, the day be­fore Trump is al­ready set to leave the White House, Mc­Connell’s of­fice said.

The leg­is­la­tion is al­so in­tend­ed to pre­vent Trump from ever run­ning again.

Even Trump al­ly Kevin Mc­Carthy, the House Re­pub­li­can leader, shift­ed his po­si­tion and said yes­ter­day the pres­i­dent bears re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the hor­ri­fy­ing day at the Capi­tol.

In mak­ing a case for the “high crimes and mis­de­meanours” de­mand­ed in the con­sti­tu­tion, the four-page im­peach­ment res­o­lu­tion re­lies on Trump’s own in­cen­di­ary rhetoric and the false­hoods he spread about Biden’s elec­tion vic­to­ry, in­clud­ing at a ral­ly near the White House on the day of the Jan­u­ary 6 at­tack on the Capi­tol.

Ten Re­pub­li­can law­mak­ers, in­clud­ing third-rank­ing House GOP leader Liz Ch­eney of Wyoming, vot­ed to im­peach Trump, cleav­ing the Re­pub­li­can lead­er­ship, and the par­ty it­self. Trump was said to be livid with per­ceived dis­loy­al­ty from Mc­Connell and Ch­eney.

With the team around Trump hol­lowed out and his Twit­ter ac­count si­lenced by the so­cial me­dia com­pa­ny, the pres­i­dent was deeply frus­trat­ed that he could not hit back, ac­cord­ing to White House of­fi­cials and Re­pub­li­cans close to the West Wing who weren’t au­tho­rised to speak pub­licly.

Con­vic­tion and re­moval of Trump would re­quire a two-thirds vote in the Sen­ate, which will be even­ly di­vid­ed. (AP)


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored