Hours after a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters broke through police barriers and stormed the U.S. Capitol, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said she had begun drafting the documents necessary for the House of Representatives to impeach the president for the second time in his tenure.
“I am drawing up Articles of Impeachment. Donald J. Trump should be impeached by the House of Representatives & removed from office by the United States Senate. We can’t allow him to remain in office, it’s a matter of preserving our Republic and we need to fulfill our oath,” Omar said on Wednesday afternoon.
The unprecedented armed insurrection—which followed a Trump speech in which the president falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him and directed his supporters to march to the Capitol—interrupted lawmakers who were formally counting certified state Electoral College votes.
Undetered by the day’s extraordinary events that many legal experts called an attempted coup, Rep. Omar said she and her colleagues planned to finish counting the electoral votes in favor of President-elect Joe Biden before the night was out.
“Rest assured, this day will not end without us finishing the work Congress is supposed to carry out,” Omar wrote. “We will not let our Constitution be trampled on by a mob and threaten by a tyrant. Democracy will prevail.”
Omar is not alone in calling for the ouster of the president and his allies in Congress, who contributed to the toxic atmosphere that spurred Trump supporters to insurrection.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) similarly said Trump should be “immediately be impeached by the House of Representatives & removed from office by the United States Senate as soon as Congress reconvenes.”
“This is dangerous & unacceptable,” she added.
Freshman Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, who was sworn in just days ago, said that her first resolution as a member of the House “will be to call for the expulsion of the Republican members of Congress who incited this domestic terror attack on the Capitol.”
Trump was impeached by the House last year for withholding military aid in an attempt to pressure the president of Ukraine to open politically advantageous investigations into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, but the effort was shut down by Republicans in the Senate who ultimately united behind Trump. The only person who Republican senator who voted to convict Trump of abusing his power was Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
Romney said Wednesday that Trump “incited” an “insurrection.”
Rhode Island Democratic Rep. David Cicilline said he would first push for an effort to remove Trump via the 25th Amendment.
“Vice President Pence can help put down this attempted coup if he wants to. I’m circulating a letter urging him to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. If he doesn’t, then Congress should go ahead and impeach the President,” he tweeted.
[image via Tasos Katopodis_Getty Images]