House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California threatened Friday to move to impeach President Donald Trump over his role in inciting a violent mob attack on the Capitol if he did not resign "immediately," appealing to Republicans to join the push to force him from office.
In a letter to members of the House, the speaker invoked the resignation of Richard Nixon amid the Watergate scandal, when Republicans prevailed upon the president to resign and avoid the ignominy of an impeachment, calling Trump's actions a "horrific assault on our democracy."
"Today, following the president's dangerous and seditious acts, Republicans in Congress need to follow that example and call on Trump to depart his office -- immediately," she wrote. "If the president does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action."
Pelosi also said she had spoken with Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about "preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes."
A spokesman for Milley, Col. Dave Butler, confirmed that the two had spoken and said the general had "answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority."
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But some Defense Department officials have privately expressed anger that political leaders seemed to be trying to get the Pentagon to do the work of Congress and Cabinet secretaries, who have legal options to remove a president.
Trump, they noted, is still the commander in chief, and unless he is removed, the military is bound to follow his lawful orders. While military officials can refuse to carry out orders they view as illegal, they cannot proactively remove the president from the chain of command. That would be a military coup, these officials said.
During an appearance in Wilmington, Del., on Friday, President-elect Joe Biden did not weigh in on plans to impeach Trump, saying, "What the Congress decides to do is for them to decide."
But Biden had harsh words for Trump, saying, "He has exceeded even my worst notions about him. He's been an embarrassment for the country." And he added, "He's not worthy to hold the office."
Also Friday, Twitter permanently banned Trump's account, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence" following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
Twitter has long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviors. But in a detailed explanation posted on its blog Friday, the company said recent Trump tweets amounted to glorification of violence when read in the context of the Capitol riot and plans circulating online for armed protests around the Jan. 20 inauguration of Biden.
In the Trump tweets cited by Twitter, the president stated that he will not attend the inauguration and referred to his supporters as "American Patriots," saying they will have "a GIANT VOICE long into the future." Twitter said these statements "are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so."
Twitter said its policy enables world leaders to speak to the public, but that these accounts "are not above our rules entirely" and can't use Twitter to incite violence. Trump had roughly 89 million followers.
IMPEACHMENT MOMENTUM BUILDS
The letter from Pelosi came as momentum for impeachment was rapidly growing Friday among rank-and-file Democrats across the party's ideological spectrum.
Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 4 Democrat, said that if Vice President Mike Pence would not invoke the 25th Amendment to forcibly relieve Trump of his duties, House Democrats were prepared to act on impeachment by the middle of next week. But in a noon phone call, some others cautioned that Democrats needed to pause to consider the implications, and Pelosi told her colleagues she planned to speak to Biden about the matter Friday afternoon.
An aide to Pelosi said she still had not heard from Pence, despite putting intense public pressure on him to act. But Pence was said to be opposed to doing so, and she was making plans to move ahead.
Democrats were rushing to begin the expedited proceeding two days after the president rallied his supporters near the White House, urging them to go to the Capitol to protest his election defeat, then continuing to stoke their grievances as they stormed the building -- with Pence and the entire Congress meeting inside to formalize Biden's victory -- in a rampage that left an officer and a member of the mob dead. Three others also died, including a woman who was crushed in the crowd, and two people who had medical emergencies on the Capitol grounds.
The prospect of forcing Trump from office in less than two weeks appeared remote given the logistical and political challenges involved, including the fact that a two-thirds majority in the Senate would be required.
Just a day after he voted twice to overturn Biden's victory in key swing states, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, urged both parties to "lower the temperature" and said he would reach out to Biden about uniting the country. Though he did not defend Trump, he argued that seeking to remove him would not help.
"Impeaching the president with just 12 days left in his term will only divide our country more," he said.
Some Republicans would rather see Trump resign or removed via the 25th Amendment.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., has called on Pence to invoke the Amendment and remove Trump. Others have suggested that they would welcome Trump's resignation or his removal under those circumstances.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Friday that Trump should resign, making her the first Republican senator to say he should leave office.
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"I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage," Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News.
Murkowski told the newspaper that if the GOP doesn't cut ties with Trump, she might leave the party. "If the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me," she said.
Murkowski said Trump should leave if he's not going to do his job. She cited his announcement that he would skip Biden's inauguration as well as inattention to the covid-19 pandemic, saying, "He's either been golfing or he's been inside the Oval Office fuming."
She added, "He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don't think he's capable of doing a good thing."
At least some Republicans appeared newly open to the possibility of impeachment, which would disqualify Trump from holding political office in the future.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a frequent critic of Trump, said he would "definitely consider whatever articles they [House members] might move, because I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office."
"He swore an oath to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution -- he acted against that," Sasse said on CBS. "What he did was wicked."
While House Democrats could impeach Trump on their own, removing him would require at least 17 Senate Republicans joining with the 50 Democrats that will be seated once Sens.-elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are certified as the winners of Tuesday's Georgia runoffs.
Senate impeachment trials are governed by an intricate and lengthy set of procedures that could be difficult to waive. Trump's first impeachment trial, which concluded in February, lasted 20 days.
Trump could still be impeached after he leaves office, most constitutional scholars say, which would have the effect of barring him from the presidency again. But there is a political barrier to proceeding with a Senate trial: the impending inauguration of Biden, and his need to rapidly confirm a Cabinet.
A lengthy impeachment trial could obstruct efforts to staff Biden's administration and prepare to govern amid the pandemic as well as dire circumstances abroad, including a simmering threat from Iran.
At a news conference Friday, Biden suggested those concerns were on his mind even as he chose not to dissuade lawmakers from impeaching Trump.
Were it six months from the end of Trump's term, Biden said, "we should be moving everything to get him out of office -- impeaching him again, trying to invoke the 25th Amendment, whatever it took."
"But I am focused now on us taking control as president and vice president on the 20th and get our agenda moving as quickly as we can," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Nicholas Fandos and Luke Broadwater of The New York Times; by Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post; and by Mark Thiessen, Alan Fram, Tali Arbel, Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Zeke Miller and Alexandra Jaffe of The Associated Press.
