SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives voted late on Tuesday to urge Vice President Mike Pence to start the U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment process of removing President Donald Trump from office.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution formally calling on Pence to act, Reuters reported. The final vote was 223-205 in favor.
The resolution urged him to “declare what is obvious to a horrified Nation: That the President is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office,” according to AP.
Pence has already rejected that course of action.
“I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution,” Pence said in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Reuters said.
To invoke the 25th Amendment, Pence and a majority of Trump’s Cabinet would need to declare that Trump is unable to perform his duties.
The House is expected to vote Wednesday on impeaching Trump on charges that he incited an insurrection against the U.S. government, according to Reuters.
Already scheduled to leave office next week, Trump is on the verge of becoming the only president in history to be twice impeached.
That would trigger a trial in the still Republican-controlled Senate, although it was unclear whether enough time or political appetite remained to expel Trump.
AP reported that five Republican lawmakers, including third-ranking House GOP leader Liz Cheney of Wyoming, announced they would vote to impeach Trump on Wednesday, cleaving the Republican leadership, and the party itself.
“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” said Cheney 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.”
In his first public appearance since last Wednesday’s riot, Trump showed no contrition on Tuesday for his speech, in which he repeated his false claim that President-elect Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate. Biden will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20.
“What I said was totally appropriate,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday in his first public foray since the assault on the Capitol.
