WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has been impeached by the House days before leaving office, becoming the first American president to be impeached twice.
The previous three impeachments — those of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Trump — took months before a final vote, including investigations in the House and hearings. This time it only took a week after Trump encouraged a crowd of his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats and 10 Republicans voted to impeach Trump on one charge: incitement of insurrection.
Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the Senate will not begin a trial until next Tuesday, at the very earliest, which is the day before Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in as president. It's unclear, for now, exactly how that trial will proceed and if any Senate Republicans will vote to convict Trump.
Even though the trial won't happen until Trump is already out of office, it could still have the effect of preventing him from running for president again.
A look at next steps:
Sending to the Senate
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., displays the signed article of impeachment against President Donald Trump in an engrossment ceremony before transmission to the Senate for trial on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021.
Once the House votes to impeach, the speaker of the House can send the article or articles over to the Senate immediately — or she can wait a while. Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn't yet said when she will send them, but many Democrats in her caucus have urged her to do so immediately.
Pelosi has already appointed nine impeachment managers to argue the case against Trump in a Senate trial, a sign that she will send them sooner rather than later.
Once the articles are sent over — that is usually done with an official walk from the House to the Senate — then the majority leader of the Senate must start the process of having a trial.
The Senate schedule
The entrance to Sen. Mitch McConnell's leadership office is seen at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 11, 2021.
The Senate is not scheduled to be in session until Jan. 19, which could be McConnell's last day as Senate leader. Once Vice President Kamala Harris is sworn in, making her the president of the Senate, and Georgia's two Democratic senators are also sworn in, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer will take charge and determine how the trial will proceed.
McConnell said he will not bring the Senate back on an emergency basis to start the trial, so the earliest it could begin would be Tuesday. That means the trial is certain to take place after Trump has already left office.
McConnell noted that the three previous Senate trials lasted “83 days, 37 days, and 21 days respectively.”
All eyes on McConnell
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks from the Senate floor to his office on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.
McConnell believes that Trump committed impeachable offenses and considers the Democrats’ impeachment drive an opportunity to reduce the divisive, chaotic president’s hold on the GOP, a Republican strategist told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
And McConnell told major donors over the weekend that he was through with Trump, said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe McConnell’s conversations. His wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, resigned from Trump's Cabinet soon after the riots.
But despite sending signals, McConnell has been characteristically quiet in public. In a note to colleagues Wednesday released by his office, McConnell said he had “not made a final decision on how I will vote.”
Senate politics
In this June 23, 2020, file photo Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, listens during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing.
If McConnell voted to convict, other Republicans would surely follow. But no GOP senators have said how they will vote, and two-thirds of the Senate is needed.
Still, some Republicans have told Trump to resign, including Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and few are defending him.
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska has said he would take a look at what the House approves, but stopped short of committing to support it.
Other Republicans have said that impeachment would be divisive. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, long a key ally of the president, has been critical of his behavior in inciting the riots but said impeachment “will do far more harm than good.”
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in last year's impeachment trial, after the House impeached Trump over his dealings with the president of Ukraine.
In the House, 10 Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump, including Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican. Every single House Republican voted against Trump's first impeachment in 2019.
Trump's future
If the Senate were to convict, lawmakers could then take a separate vote on whether to disqualify Trump from holding future office.
Schumer said Wednesday: "Make no mistake, there will be an impeachment trial in the United States Senate; there will be a vote on convicting the president for high crimes and misdemeanors; and if the president is convicted, there will be a vote on barring him from running again.”
In the case of federal judges who were impeached and removed from office, the Senate has taken a second vote after conviction to determine whether to bar the person from ever holding federal office again.
Only a majority of senators would be needed to ban him from future office, unlike the two-thirds needed to convict.
Different charges, different impeachment
House Democratic impeachment manager, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., leaves the Senate chamber after the acquittal of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020.
This impeachment trial is likely to differ from the last one in many ways.
The House charges in 2019 on Trump's dealings with the president of Ukraine, whom he urged to investigate Biden, came after a lengthy investigation and testimony from multiple government officials. While Democrats unanimously criticized the conduct and charged Trump with abuse of power, the charges wove together a complicated web of evidence.
This time, Democrats felt there was little need for an investigation — the invasion of the Capitol played out on live television, and most members of Congress were in the building as it happened.
Trump's speech beforehand, in which he told his supporters to “fight like hell” against the election results, was also televised as Congress prepared to officially count the votes.
House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, who led the last House impeachment team, said the insurrection at the Capitol was an “impeachable offense committed in broad daylight, in which the whole country was a witness.”
He said the lightning-fast impeachment “was required by the exigency of the circumstances, and also made possible by the very nature of the crime.”
The article
An aide closes the article of impeachment against President Donald Trump, after it was signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., in an engrossment ceremony before transmission to the Senate for trial on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021.
The four-page article of impeachment says that Trump “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government.”
It was introduced by Democratic Reps. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Ted Lieu of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, all of whom have been tapped to serve as impeachment managers in the Senate trial.
The article says Trump's behavior is consistent with his prior efforts to “subvert and obstruct” the results of the election and references his recent call with the Georgia secretary of state, in which he said he wanted him to find him more votes after losing the state to Biden.
Trump has falsely claimed there was widespread fraud in the election, and the baseless claims have been repeatedly echoed by congressional Republicans and the insurgents who descended on the Capitol.
As the protesters broke in, both chambers were debating GOP challenges to the electoral vote count in Arizona as part of the process for certifying Biden’s election win.
These are the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, led the GOP opposition to Trump, saying in a statement, "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
Cheney, whose father, Dick Cheney, served as vice president under George W. Bush, has been more critical of Trump than other GOP leaders, but her announcement hours before Wednesday's vote nonetheless shook Congress.
Trump “summoned” the mob that attacked the Capitol, “assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,'' Cheney said, adding: “Everything that followed was his doing.” Trump could have immediately intervened to stop his supporters from rioting but did not, she noted.
Rep. John Katko of New York
Katko, a former federal prosecutor who represents the Syracuse area, was the first rank-and-file GOP lawmaker to support impeachment. Allowing Trump "to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” he said Tuesday.
“By deliberately promoting baseless theories suggesting the election was somehow stolen, the president created a combustible environment of misinformation, disenfranchisement and division,'' Katko said. "When this manifested in violent acts on January 6th, he refused to promptly and forcefully call it off, putting countless lives in danger.''
Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan
Upton, a former chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee who is in his 18th term representing the Kalamazoo area, said he would have preferred a bipartisan, formal censure rather than a drawn-out impeachment process. But he said Trump's refusal to take responsibility for the riot left him no choice but to support impeachment.
Trump claimed Tuesday that his remarks at a rally just before the riot were “totally appropriate,” an assertion that Upton said “sends exactly the wrong signal to those of us who support the very core of our democratic principles and took a solemn oath to the Constitution."
"The Congress must hold President Trump to account and send a clear message that our country cannot and will not tolerate any effort by any president to impede the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next,'' he said.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran who has emerged as a leading Trump critic, said lawmakers were “in uncharted waters here, and in a moment in history we have not experienced in modern times.''
But Kinzinger, who is in his sixth term representing northern Illinois, said there was "no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection.'' Trump “used his position in the executive” branch to attack the legislative branch, he said.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington
Herrera Beutler, in her sixth term representing southwestern Washington, said on the House floor that the enemy was fear, not Trump or President-elect Joe Biden. Fear incites anger and violence "and it haunts us into silence and inaction,'' she said.
While many GOP lawmakers are afraid of Trump, “truth sets us free from fear,'' Herrera Beutler said. “My vote to impeach a sitting president is not a fear-based decision,'' she said. "I am not choosing a side. I'm choosing truth; it's the only way to defeat fear.''
Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington
Newhouse said on the House floor that the Democratic-led articles of impeachment were flawed, but he would not use process as an excuse to vote no.
“There is no excuse for President Trump’s actions,” said Newhouse, in his fifth term representing central Washington.
Trump, like members of Congress, took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, Newhouse said. “Last week, there was a domestic threat at the door of the Capitol and he did nothing to stop it,” Newhouse said. “That is why with a heavy heart and clear resolve, I will vote yes on these articles of impeachment.”
Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan
Meijer, a freshman who represents the Grand Rapids area, said Trump betrayed his oath of office and "bears responsibility for inciting the insurrection we suffered last week.'' He also said he supported impeachment with a heavy heart.
Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina
Rice's vote may have been the most surprising. His coastal district strongly backed Trump in the election and he voted last week to object to certification of electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania. "I have backed this president through thick and thin for four years. I've campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But this utter failure is inexcusable,'' Rice said in a statement after the vote.
While he's not sure if Trump's Jan. 6 speech amounted to incitement of a riot, “any reasonable person could see the potential for violence,” Rice said. "It is only by the grace of God and the blood of the Capitol Police that the death toll was not much, much higher.”
Rice said he was disappointed that Trump has failed to show remorse over the riot or address the nation to ask for calm.
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
Rep. David Valadao of California
What's next?
Trump’s fate is now up the Republican-controlled Senate, which acquitted him last year without hearing witnesses in a trial. This time, however, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, pictured, is said to be angry at Trump, not only over the Capitol insurrection but also the twin defeats in Georgia the day before that cost the GOP its Senate majority, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the situation.
McConnell said Wednesday he has not made a final decision on how he will vote and will listen to legal arguments presented in a Senate trial, which may not be concluded before Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
At least two GOP senators — Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania — have said they support impeachment or have called on Trump to resign. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., has said he will consider impeachment.
Only one Republican senator, Mitt Romney of Utah, voted to convict Trump last year.
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Alan Fram and Jessica Gresko contributed to this report from Washington.
