House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) informed her Democratic colleagues on Sunday night of plans to move forward with impeachment if Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet don’t remove President Donald Trump from office via the 25th Amendment.
In a letter to House Democrats, Pelosi announced that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) on Monday will request unanimous consent for Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) resolution calling on Pence to invoke the Amendment. The resolution will be brought up on the House floor the next day if unanimous consent is not reached, a near certainty given several House Republicans’ opposition to removing Trump before Inauguration Day.
Afterwards, Pelosi said, Pence will have 24 hours to respond before Democrats introduce articles of impeachment.
“Next, we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the Floor,” the Democratic leader wrote.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she continued. “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.”
After Trump encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol in a violent insurrection that led to five deaths on Wednesday, Democrats have called for his immediate removal via either the 25th Amendment or impeachment. A majority of House Democrats have backed Reps. Raskin (D-MD), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and David Cicilline’s (D-RI) article of impeachment, which charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection.”
Pence has not responded to demands to assemble the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment.
