The United States House of Representatives approved this Wednesday to initiate an impeachment process against President Donald Trump, accused of “inciting insurrection” for his role in the assault on the Capitol that led to out the supporters of him. The vote resulted in 232 votes in favor and 197 against, when the limit to approve the impeachment was 217.
The favorable vote of the Democrats of the House of Representatives, a majority in the US Lower House, have joined several Republican legislators, including John Katko, Liz Cheney and Jamie Herrera. Although the number of Republicans who have finally decided to support the ‘impeachment’ has not been clear until the vote, the support of these legislators underscores their discontent over the Capitol incident, which took place last week, during the certification of the Joe Biden’s victory in Congress.
At the beginning of the debate, the president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, pointed out that Trump is a “clear and present danger” for the United States, underlining that “the president incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our country,” according to has reported the television network CNN. In addition, she added that the New York tycoon has lied “repeatedly” about the result of the presidential elections, held in November, and has questioned democracy.
In parallel, she has branded the people who stormed the Capitol as “domestic terrorists” and has emphasized that Trump “sent” them to the building. “They are not patriots”, she has riveted, marking distance with the adjective with which the president has defined them. “The president must submit to an ‘impeachment'”, she has settled her. The text presented maintains that Trump repeated false claims about his supposed victory in the presidential elections of November 3 and harangued his followers in a speech broadcast on January 6 itself.
The deadlines prevent Trump from being removed before January 20, the date on which Biden will take office as president of the United States, but they would allow him to disqualify him from holding public office and running for re-election in 2024. With this process, Trump will become the first president of the United States to be subjected to two impeachment processes after he was acquitted in February 2020 after being accused of abuse of presidential power and obstruction of Congress for pressuring Ukrainian leaders to Biden and his son Hunter will be investigated for their business activities.
