House vote makes Trump first US president to be impeached twice

• The Democratic-majority House passed the impeachment resolution with a vote of 232 to 197. Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting for impeachment.

• Trump is now the only US president in history to have been impeached twice.

• The next stage of the proceedings is a Senate trial planned for next week. A two-thirds majority is required to convict Trump on the impeachment charges in that Chamber, making that outcome unlikely. Although some Senate Republicans have said they would vote to impeach Trump after the events of January 6, support for the measure is expected to fall short of the 67 senators needed.

• Trump released a video statement shortly after the House vote, disavowing the violence at the Capitol and asking Americans to “move forward united”. He did not mention impeachment.

• Biden said it was important that a Senate impeachment trial in the early days of his term not delay work on his legislative priorities, including Cabinet confirmations, and urged Senate leaders to find a way to do both at the same time. He did not explicitly urge senators to vote in favor of impeachment.

• Democratic lawmakers allege that Trump incited the mob that eventually entered and ransacked the Capitol building. In a speech at a so-called Save America rally earlier that day, Trump repeated unfounded claims of election fraud and told the crowd he would “never concede” the 2020 election. He urged supporters to go to the Capitol to support Republican lawmakers who had vowed to challenge Biden’s win.

• “Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy,” Trump told the crowd, pledging to join them as they “walk down to the Capitol” (although he did not). “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”

• Trump supporters fought with Capitol Police and then forced their way into the building, breaking windows and scaling the outside walls. Several officers were wounded and the National Guards of several nearby US states were mobilised to provide support. Five people died in the unrest, including a woman who was shot by Capitol Police and a police officer who was beaten by rioters.

• The third-ranking Republican in the House, Liz Cheney, announced Tuesday she would vote to impeach, in a speech cited on Wednesday by several of her Democratic counterparts. “There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” she said in a statement about the US Capitol attack. Other House Republicans who voted for impeachment included Representative John Katko of New York; Fred Upton and Peter Meijer of Michigan; Washington’s Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse; and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

Source:france24.com/