Breaking: Pelosi led House impeaches Trump for second time over Capitol protest

President Donald Trump of the United States of America has Wednesday been impeached by Speaker Nancy Pelosi led House of Representatives over his supporters’ protest turned riot at the capitol.

The riot has been described as “incitement of insurrection”, and Wednesday’s impeachment made him the first President in US history to be twice impeached.

Trump would be charged with crimes by Congress.

Trump’s fate would be decided by the Senate where his party (Republicans) has control and if the Senate allows the impeachment, Trump will be permanently barred from holding public office.

Wednesday’s impeachment proceedings
passed largely along party lines.

Trump insisted that the election that he lost was marred with fraud, a situation that has the US Congress got to debate the results to either accept it or not.

The impeachment was coming barely a week to leaving the office for Joe Biden of Democratic party.

Six Republicans said beforehand they would side with Democrats to impeach the president.

However, ten eventually voted in support of the impeachment. A total of 232 voted for the impeachment while 197 Republicans expressed their opposition in obvious demonstration of loyalty to Mr Trump.

But it is unlikely Mr Trump will have to leave the White House before his term in office ends in one week as the Senate was not expected to convene in time.

Last week, 139 Republicans voted against accepting the result of the 2020 election and Mr Trump’s defeat.

Impeachment charges are political, not criminal. The president was accused by Congress of inciting the storming of the Capitol with his 6 January speech to a rally outside the White House.

Following Mr Trump’s remarks, his supporters broke into the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to suspend certification of election results and take shelter. The building was placed on lockdown and five people died.

The article of impeachment stated that Mr Trump “repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the presidential election results were fraudulent and should not be accepted”.

It says he then repeated these claims and “willfully made statements to the crowd that encouraged and foreseeably resulted in lawless action at the Capitol”, leading to the violence and loss of life.

“President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government, threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said on the House floor: “The president of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our common country.

“He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.”

Most Republicans did not seek to defend Mr Trump’s rhetoric, instead arguing that the impeachment had bypassed the customary hearings and calling on Democrats to drop it for the sake of national unity.

“Impeaching the president in such a short time frame would be a mistake,” said Kevin McCarthy, the House’s top Republican.

“That doesn’t mean the president’s free from fault. The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”