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Impeachment a 'vote of conscience' for GOP
By Jeremy Herb, Manu Raju, Lauren Fox and Phil Mattingly, CNN
Updated 1:07 PM ET, Tue January 12, 2021
(CNN)House Democrats' drive to impeach President Donald Trump for his role inciting last week's riots at the US Capitol is putting many Republicans in a bind as they weigh how to vote Wednesday on the conduct of a President who had previously been unassailable in the House GOP conference throughout his four-year term.
While the vast majority of House Republicans are expected to oppose the article of impeachment on Wednesday, there are expectations there could be as many as 10 -- maybe more, maybe less -- breaking ranks, according to House GOP aides.
Democrats are nearly united in their belief that the President deserves to be impeached and removed in the fallout of the pro-Trump rioters that breached the Capitol and put the lives of lawmakers -- and Vice President Mike Pence -- in danger on January 6. The House will first vote on a measure Tuesday evening urging Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, which could signal how many Republicans will back impeachment.
Then on Wednesday, the House will take up a resolution and vote to impeach Trump for "incitement of insurrection."
Trump's impeachment for the second time in 13 months -- which would make him the first President in history to be impeached twice -- appears to be a foregone conclusion. The only question is how many House members vote in favor of removing the President from office eight days before President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in.
House Republican leaders won't whip their colleagues and tell them to vote against the impeachment resolution on Wednesday, according to leadership aides. Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 in GOP leadership who has been sharply critical of Trump's efforts to overturn the election, did not tell her members how to vote Monday, but she called the impeachment vote a "vote of conscience." Cheney has not said how she will vote.
The GOP strategy is another marked departure from the approach in 2019 when Republican leaders pushed their members to fall in line and no GOP House lawmakers defected. It shows the splintering of the GOP and how the party is deeply divided over how to respond to Trump after he incited last week's deadly Capitol riot.
Republicans tried to offer an alternative to impeachment, such as a censure vote, arguing it could win more bipartisan support than an impeachment occurring just one week after the riots. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her caucus Monday that censure was a nonstarter, and Democrats are not considering any off ramps to avoid a second impeachment.
Trump made his first comments on the looming impeachment vote and the Capitol riots on Tuesday, railing against impeachment as a continued "witch hunt" and taking no responsibility for his comments leading up to the riots.
"On the impeachment, it's really a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics. It's ridiculous, it's absolutely ridiculous," Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn Tuesday on his way to Alamo, Texas. "This impeachment is causing tremendous anger, and you're doing it and it's really a terrible thing that they're doing."
Trump took no ownership for inciting the riots last week. "It's been analyzed," he said of his remarks. "People thought what I said was totally appropriate."
Democrats, furious over the events of January 6 have coalesced around impeachment quickly as the only proper response to the President's repeated lies about the election being stolen from him that whipped up his supporters to the point where they tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power by invading the Capitol while the Electoral College votes were being counted.
"This was a brutal and violent attack on our democracy, and Donald Trump incited this by promoting the big lie that he, in fact, won the election by millions of votes but it was stolen from him," Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat and one of the authors of the impeachment resolution, said on CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday. "We'll demonstrate unequivocally that the President's language, the statements he made, the promotion of the big lie made violence at the Capitol inevitable. He's responsible for it. He needs to be removed from office immediately. he's a clear and present danger to the united states
The process for an impeachment vote on the floor begins Wednesday in the House Rules Committee, which is meeting to govern the floor debate for the 25th Amendment resolution sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Later on Wednesday, the Rules Committee will then vote on the rules to govern debate on the impeachment resolution that will be on the floor on Wednesday.
Similar to other impeachment proceedings, the House Judiciary Committee will release a report detailing the argument for Trump's impeachment, a committee aide told CNN, even though in this case the House Judiciary Committee did not take any official action related to impeachment.
The House will vote late Tuesday evening on Raskin's resolution, before taking up the impeachment resolution at 9 a.m. ET Wednesday.
House and Senate Democrats have still not finalized plans for what to do after the House impeaches Trump. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who will become majority leader on January 20 when Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are sworn in, giving Democrats the tiebreaking vote in a 50-50 Senate, said Monday he's trying to use a rare procedural tactic to bring the Senate back before January 20, but that would require cooperation from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said the Senate will not return before January 19.
Instead, Schumer and the incoming Biden team are preparing to split the Senate's days for an impeachment trial: Working to confirm Biden's Cabinet and pass legislation in the morning, and conducting the trial beginning at 1 p.m. each day, as the Constitution requires, in the opening days of Biden's presidency.
CNN's Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
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