House introduces article of impeachment accusing Trump of 'incitement of insurrection'
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The U.S. House of Representatives has introduced an article of impeachment that accuses President Donald Trump of “incitement of insurrection.”
The House introduced the article on Monday and could vote as early as Wednesday if Trump fails to heed calls for him to resign, report the Washington Post and the New York Times. The House will vote on a separate measure on Tuesday calling on Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment.
The impeachment article says that, in the months preceding the Jan. 6. riot at the U.S. Capitol, Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted or certified.
Shortly before the joint session of Congress to certify the results, Trump reiterated the false claims in a speech to a crowd, the article says. “He also willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged—and foreseeably resulted in—lawless action at the Capitol,” the article says.
The statements included, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The article also cited Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” enough votes to allow Trump to win in Georgia.
“In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government,” the article says. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government.”
Lawmakers said the exact language of the article could be revised before the House votes, according to the New York Times.
