Reprinted from www.thenation.com
House impeaches Trump for second time - 1/13 (FULL LIVE STREAM) The House of Representatives is poised to impeach President Trump for a second time when it meets on Jan. 13 to consider an article charging him with ...
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President Trump violated his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States when he incited a seditious mob to attack the US Capitol as part of a failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. For this, Trump was impeached on Wednesday, by a 232-197 vote of the House of Representatives.
A House majority recognized the truth of the call to action by Representative Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who served as the lead manager for the second impeachment: "We have a solemn duty to protect our democracy and Constitution."
But it was nowhere near the unanimous vote that it should have been.
Republican opponents of accountability refused on Wednesday to recognize Trump's incitement to insurrection, echoed the president's lies and conspiracy theories, and dismissed the impeachment vote as a "made-for-TV spectacle"-confirming the observation of Representative Maxine Waters that "the Republican Party is now the Trump Party."
Wednesday's urgent vote to impeach will not be met with equal urgency by the Senate. Just as Senate Republicans prevented Trump's removal a year ago, every indication is that they are prepared to again thwart justice. Though he now criticizes the president he served so diligently over the past four years, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, on Wednesday rejected the urging of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York, to call the Senate back into session for an immediate trial. Even if a trial of Trump were to occur after he leaves office on January 20, as is now proposed, there is scant evidence to suggest that the majority of Senate Republicans would be prepared to convict the 45th president and to bar him from seeking a new term as president in 2024.
Much was made on Wednesday of the handful of House Republicans who actually voted for impeachment. But only 10 Republican members-less than 5 percent of the party caucus-did the right thing.