January 13th local time, with the vote of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the “sedition” impeachment clause, US President Trump was impeached again with seven days left before his term. He also became the first president in American history to be impeached twice.
This impeachment has been more than a year since the last impeachment. The last impeachment was to ask the President of Ukraine to investigate his opponent Biden, and this time to incite supporters to rebel.
Compared with the three-month investigation and evidence collection of the last impeachment, it only took one week from the incident to the vote on impeachment.
Another difference is that 10 Republican congressmen joined the Democratic camp to vote for impeachment this time, compared with zero supporters in the last Republican congressman vote.
In the House debate before the vote that day, Speaker Pelosi said that Trump posed a “clear and realistic threat” to the United States. Cheney, the third Republican figure in the House of Representatives who supported impeachment, also said that “it was the President of the United States who called on and gathered the mob and ignited the flames of the attack”.
A week ago, during the congressional count of the presidential election votes, Trump supporters violently stormed Congress, killing at least five people.
Earlier on the day of the incident, Trump called on his supporters to “fight as much as possible” to change the election results.
Regarding the “hurriedly launch of impeachment” accused by Republicans, Democrats believe that the incident is basically presented on TV and Twitter before and after, without investigation and evidence collection.
The need to initiate impeachment at the last minute of Trump’s presidency lies in the “dangerous” of Trump’s behavior and the need to prevent him from running for president again.
Trump, who has been “banned” by multiple social media platforms such as Twitter, made a video speech on Fox that day condemning the violence and said that those who acted violently were “not my real supporters”. Regarding the impeachment again, Trump called it “a continuation of the largest witch hunt” in political history.
Although Trump did not obviously “depreciated weakness” in his recent speech, it can be seen from the criticism of many Republican lawmakers and the resignations of senior White House officials, so on. Trump no longer has the full support of Republicans.
According to the regulations, after the House of Representatives votes to pass the impeachment clause, the Senate will hear the impeachment case next. At present, the Senate is in adjourning.
The current Senate majority leader, Republican McConnell, said on the 13th that he would not resume the meeting early. It is planned that the Senate will resume on the 19th of this month and Biden will take office on the 20th. According to the timetable, the Senate trial of Trump’s impeachment will be held after Biden takes office, which will also be the first impeachment trial of a former president in American history.
Under the U.S. Constitution, in a vote after the Senate hearing, if more than two-thirds of the members believe that the impeachment clause is established, the president will be removed from office or acquitted.
In the new Senate, Democrats and Republicans each have 50 seats, so Democrats need at least 17 votes from Republicans to convict Trump.
At present, two Republican members of the Senate have said that Trump should “severe as soon as possible”, but the vast majority of members have not taken a stand against Trump’s impeachment while condemning the violent impact on Congress. U.S. media believe that these Republican lawmakers are carefully measuring the political risks of the incident.
According to the New York Times on the 12th, Senate Republican Leader McConnell believes that Trump’s behavior is “impeachable” and he “approves” with the Democratic Party’s impeachment.
McConnell wrote to Republicans on the 13th that he had not yet decided how to vote.
According to the analysis of The Washington Post, McConnell will undoubtedly be the key figure in this impeachment. If he decides to support impeachment, it will inevitably bring the 17 Republican votes needed by the Democrats, which means that Trump may become the first president in American history to be convicted by the Senate.
U.S. media believe that no matter how the impeachment incident develops in the future, it is bound to have a negative impact on the Republican Party.
As many Republican lawmakers believe, it was Trump’s post-election remarks about “election fraud” that caused the Republican Party to lose their Senate majority, and this violent impact on Congress and subsequent impeachment will undoubtedly make the Republican Party more “divisive”.
On the Democratic side, despite the unanimous unity of House Democrats in the impeachment, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin and others believe that focusing on impeaching Trump as Biden is about to take office “will lead to further division and will not be conducive to healing the scars”.
Biden issued a statement that night, hoping that the Senate would also conduct routine affairs while hearing impeachment, such as approving cabinet appointments and responding to pandemic assistance cases.
Biden stressed that “the country is still deep in the midst of the epidemic and economic crisis.”
