Donald Trump on Wednesday became the first American president to be impeached twice, leaving another indelible stain on his presidency just a week before he is slated to leave office
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi oversees the vote to impeach President Donald Trump on the House floor for the second time in his presidency on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 13, 2021. President Donald Trump became the first president to be impeached twice, after the House approved a single charge citing his role in whipping up a mob that stormed the Capitol. He faces a Senate trial that could disqualify him from future office; Image: Erin Schaff/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump on Wednesday became the first American president to be impeached twice, as 10 members of his party joined with Democrats in the House to charge him with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in egging on a violent mob that stormed the Capitol last week.
Reconvening in a building now heavily militarized against threats from pro-Trump activists and adorned with bunting for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, lawmakers voted 232-197 to approve a single impeachment article. It accused Trump of “inciting violence against the government of the United States,” in his quest to overturn the election results and called for him to be removed and disqualified from ever holding public office again.
The vote left another indelible stain on Trump's presidency just a week before he is slated to leave office and laid bare the cracks running through the Republican Party. More members of his party voted to charge the president than in any other impeachment.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, declaring the past week one of the darkest chapters in American history, implored colleagues to embrace “a constitutional remedy that will ensure that the republic will be safe from this man who is so resolutely determined to tear down the things that we hold dear and that hold us together.”
A little more than a year after she led a painstaking, three-month process to impeach Trump the first time for a pressure campaign on Ukraine to incriminate Biden — a case rejected by the president’s unfailingly loyal Republican supporters — Pelosi had moved this time with little fanfare to do the same job in only seven days.
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