NC Democrats in Congress are united on second Trump impeachment
Impeachment is neither Rep. David Price’s first nor second choice for removing President Donald Trump from office.
But the Chapel Hill Democrat signed on as a co-sponsor of an article of impeachment accusing Trump of inciting “an insurrection against the government of the United States” after last week’s deadly Capitol riot. All five North Carolina Democrats in the House are co-sponsors.
“The immediate objective is to protect the country. We don’t know what this president is capable of in the coming days,” Price said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “It’s dangerous to leave him in office.”
Trump’s term expires on Jan. 20. President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in at noon.
Price said the best course of action is for senior Republican officials to convince Trump to resign. The second best option, he said, was for Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. which would allow Pence to become acting president for the final days of the Trump administration.
“Both of those would be far preferable to mitigating our immediate danger. Impeachment, that’s the other tool that we have. It’s not nearly as direct or immediate as resignation or the 25th Amendment would be,” Price said.
The House vote Tuesday night on a resolution asking Pence to mobilize Cabinet officials to declare Trump “incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting president.”
“You can’t do what he did and then be trusted to keep the county together until you get the new president. Anything could happen,” said Rep. Deborah Ross, a Wake County Democrat, in a telephone interview.
The vote was along party lines with all five North Carolina Democrats supporting it and all seven Republicans voting against it. Rep. Greg Murphy did not vote, but issued a statement saying he was opposed to “this unnecessary and partisan measure.” He is in North Carolina caring for his wife, who underwent extensive back surgery.
Pence, in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said earlier in the day he would not invoke the 25th Amendment, saying it is reserved for a president’s incapacity, not punishment.
“I voted against this partisan resolution that Democrats insisted we vote on even after the Vice President told us he would not invoke the 25th amendment. It’s just more political games,” Republican Rep. Dan Bishop, of Charlotte, wrote on Twitter.
Impeachment vote next
On Wednesday, the House plans to vote to impeach Trump for the second time in his four-year term. The House previously impeached him in late 2019, but the Senate voted not to convict him in early 2020.
“It’s really a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics. It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday. “The impeachment is causing tremendous anger as you’re doing it.”
Those were Trump’s first live remarks since Wednesday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, which came as Congress was certifying Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Trump spoke at a rally before the mob broke into the Capitol and had urged lawmakers to overturn the election results, citing false claims of widespread voter fraud.
If Trump is impeached, it is unlikely that a Senate trial could be conducted before he leaves office — one concern for Democrats and Republicans alike, though for different reasons.
“This rushed impeachment is not serious,” Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, from Concord, said in a statement. “... “Every American was outraged and sickened by what happened at the Capitol last week. Rather than lashing out at our political opponents, every one of us needs to ask ourselves what we can do to tone down the temperature of the rhetoric, the rancor and the violence.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Banner Elk Republican, said she would like to see Trump call Biden and “acknowledge him on that basis.” She called for a full examination of the “rioting and violence” that occurred on Jan. 6 and “accountability and swift justice” for the perpetrators.
But she said a second impeachment is not the right way.
“As Congress, the American people, and the nation seek justice, the current calls for a “snap” impeachment and unprecedented, supra-Constitutional remedies must cease. We cannot abridge the safeguards that are explicitly used to enshrine justice in the name of justice itself,” Foxx said in a statement.
But at least five House Republicans, including the House’s No. 3 Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said they would support impeachment.
The Capitol riot
Five people died, including one Capitol Hill police officer and a Trump supporter who was shot as she tried to break into the House of Representatives, during the Capitol mayhem on Jan. 6.
Congress members, who were evacuated during the riot, returned to work that night to certify Biden’s win. Ross said finishing that vote was the “highlight of the week, the best part of the week.”
“I thought it was very, very important to show we were determined to do that,” Price said. “We got to go back and show that we are still carrying out this particular constitutional duty which these people had been trying to disrupt.”
Said Rep. Kathy Manning: “We were there to do something that was important. It was historic. It was the reason I had been sent to Congress to represent my district. We had a job to do for the American people.’
Manning, a Greensboro Democrat in her first term, was in a House building that was evacuated shortly before the Capitol was breached. She then made her way to the House gallery to watch the proceedings, but was soon under siege there.
At one point, officers told the lawmakers to remove heir pins — which allow them access to certain parts of the building and signify that they are a member of Congress.
“And then they said, ‘We need you all to take off your member pins because we don’t want them to be able to identify who are members.’ And that was the pint where I felt my heart started racing,” Manning said on a podcast with her daughter, Jenny Kaplan. “I hadn’t been nervous up until that point but that made me think about what could actually happen if whoever these unhinged people were broke through the doors and found us.”
Manning and other members who had been in the House eventually made it to safety in another part of the Capitol complex.
Price, like most members of the House, was not on the chamber floor when the event happened. He and his staff locked themselves in his offices and waited it out.
Ross was locked inside her office as well, quietly doing work away from windows.
The House’s acting sergeant-at-arms announced Tuesday the placement of metal detectors outside the chambers that must be used by anyone, including members, entering the House.
The memory of the day’s event — of rioters invading the Capitol, occupying some of their offices — and their belief that Trump helped incite the violence is driving Democrats to remove him from office.
“I’m interested in holding him accountable, too. But this week, for the House, the most important thing is not having him be the person in charge of the executive branch because we don’t know what he’s going to do,” Ross said.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published January 12, 2021 at 5:10 PM.
