House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday night that her chamber will move forward with legislation to impeach President Trump this week.
One of Democrats’ main motivating factors in moving forward with a second impeachment of President Trump is preventing him from running again in 2024, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed.
Speaking to “60 Minutes” Sunday in the aftermath of Trump-supporting rioters storming the US Capitol last week, Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she would personally prefer that the 25th Amendment be used to remove the commander-in-chief, but said “nothing is off the table.”
Asked about the possibility of Trump pardoning himself, which would allow him to run for president in 2024, Pelosi explained, “That’s one of the motivations that people have for advocating for impeachment.”
“Well I like the 25th Amendment because it gets rid of him. He’s out of office,” the top ranking House Democrat continued, “But there is strong support in the Congress for impeaching the president a second time. This president is guilty of inciting insurrection. He has to pay a price for that.”
Her interview with the long-running CBS News program aired at the same time that she announced her decision to move forward with a second impeachment of the president.
In a letter sent to House members Sunday evening, Pelosi explained that she was moving forward with the decision “in protecting our Constitution and our Democracy.”
“As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action,” the letter read.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” Pelosi said in the letter to the House outlining the next steps in their impeachment process.
The House will first try to force Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to remove Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment, according to Pelosi’s letter.
If legislation to execute that is blocked by Republicans, which is expected, there will be a full House vote on Tuesday, the letter explained.
The House would then move to consider the article of impeachment, Pelosi said. The day for an impeachment vote was not set.
Rep. Ted Liu said early Sunday evening that it had 210 cosponsors in the House.
However, House Democratic Whip James Clyburn said on Sunday that the party might wait until after President-elect Joe Biden’s 100 days to deliver it to the Senate.
Members of Congress were forced to evacuate in gas masks Wednesday after hundreds of Trump supporters overpowered Capitol Police and breached the building.
The chaos included an armed standoff outside the House of Representatives’ chamber and multiple deaths amid the chaos.
The Electoral College went 306-232 for Biden, but Trump has alleged that widespread fraud tipped the results in swing states.
Courts have rejected those claims, and Trump has refused to concede, though in the aftermath of the riots, he pledged a “peaceful transition of power.”
During the riots, Pelosi revealed to the network, members of her staff hid in silence under a desk for two and a half hours after barricading the door and turning out the lights.
As they sat in hiding, they listened to invaders attempt to bang down the door, a moment Pelosi got choked up describing.
“They were vocally saying, ‘Where’s the speaker? We know she has staff. They’re here someplace. We’re gonna find them,’” the California Democrat said.
The commander-in-chief was previously impeached by the House — but later acquitted by the Senate — over his inquiry to Ukraine about the country launching investigations into the Biden family.