Trump: Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings Monday

United States Democrats on Saturday said impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump could begin as early as Monday.

It is an extraordinary acceleration of a process that historically has taken weeks, but one that might not be completed before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office on January 20, AFP reports.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Democrats would launch the process unless Trump resigns or Vice President Mike Pence invokes the 25th Amendment, where the cabinet removes the president.

 

“He’s deranged, unhinged and dangerous. He must go,” Pelosi, referring to Trump, tweeted on Friday.

The move to impeach came amid continued fury over the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday by angry Trump supporters, which left five people dead, including a Capitol policeman.

Pelosi said, “In all of this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government.

“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coordinate branch of government.”

Trump, who had urged his supporters to come to Washington on Wednesday for a rally opposing his November election loss, has remained defiant, even after finally posting a video Thursday in which he belatedly promised an “orderly transition” to the Biden administration.

But the president also said that “it’s only the beginning of our fight.”

That sort of language prompted Twitter to suspend Trump permanently and fueled Democrats’ moves against him.

Reaching two-thirds could be difficult in the narrowly divided upper chamber, but a number of Republicans who long supported Trump have expressed their disgust with the events of Wednesday.

Trump supporters including Senator Lindsey Graham have urged Biden to intervene with top Democratic lawmakers to call off the impeachment effort.

“I’m calling on President-elect Biden to pick up the phone to call Nancy Pelosi and the Squad to end the second impeachment,” Graham said Friday on Fox News, referring to the House speaker and a group of four young progressive Democrats who are favorite targets of the political right.

But Biden — whose inauguration on January 20, traditionally a pomp-filled event attended by thousands, is being seriously scaled back — on Friday side-stepped a reporter’s question about impeachment.

“What the Congress decides to do is for them to do,” he said.