The drumbeat for a second Trump impeachment is getting louder.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi could bring a new article of impeachment to the House floor as early as Monday, charging President Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in encouraging a mob that went on to ransack the Capitol on Wednesday.
Privately, Republican leaders said conviction was not out of the question.
A second impeachment would be “a final showdown that will test the boundaries of politics, accountability and the Constitution,” writes Peter Baker, our chief White House correspondent. Lisa Murkowski and Patrick Toomey became the first Republican senators to publicly join the multitude of calls for Mr. Trump to resign.
No president has ever been impeached twice. If Mr. Trump were convicted, the Senate could vote to bar him from holding office again. Here’s what we know about the process.
President-elect Joe Biden sidestepped the issue, saying that “what the Congress decides to do is for them to decide,” focusing instead on the urgency of the health and economic crises facing the country.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
2. The Capitol rioters had different perspectives — QAnon, Proud Boys, elected officials, regular Americans — but one allegiance.
All had assembled in response to President Trump’s repeated appeals to march to the Capitol on Wednesday, a day that he promised would be “wild.” Many Americans thought the rally near the White House beforehand was just one more salve for Mr. Trump’s ego, wounded by losing the election. But supporters heard something else — a battle cry.
In the end, five people died, including Brian Sicknick, a military veteran and experienced Capitol Police officer. A Confederate flag was carried into the Capitol. Lawmakers, aides and journalists feared for their lives.
Some of the people pictured in viral photos and videos from the raid on the U.S. Capitol have been arrested and charged, including 13 who face federal charges. Dozens of cases are pending.
Twitter
3. In the end, it was two California billionaires who pulled the plug on President Trump.
In a watershed moment in the history of social media, Twitter permanently suspended Mr. Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” and Facebook banned the president at least through the end of his term.
Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook had been under pressure for years to hold Mr. Trump accountable. Making their move now “provides a clarifying lesson in where power resides in our digital society,” writes Kevin Roose, our technology columnist.
Many of Mr. Trump’s followers derided his banishment as an example of Silicon Valley’s tyrannical speech controls, but the First Amendment is not on their side.
(Our investigation from 2019: How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets.) The New York Times
Me: A lot of wind but no muscle yet. Let’s hope Trump is impeached on Monday and faces Legal Charges too for the riot he was behind.
Have you noticed that Trump leads from behind, not from in front?