Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Republicans Weigh Trump Censure, Impeachment

 

Republicans Weigh Trump Censure, Impeachment
a group of people walking in front of a crowd© Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The House prepared to cast a series of votes aimed at ousting or impeaching President Trump over his role in last week’s violence at the U.S. Capitol, while Republicans wrestled with how to respond to the president, who continued to deny any wrongdoing.

The first test of GOP sentiment will come Tuesday night, when a handful of Republicans who have said Mr. Trump is no longer fit to serve could join Democrats in supporting a resolution demanding that Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office. If Mr. Pence doesn’t act, Democrats have said they would move forward with an impeachment vote Wednesday, and would have enough votes even without GOP support.

Mr. Trump, in his first comments to reporters in several days, criticized Democrats for seeking to impeach him, calling it a “continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics” and said the move was “causing tremendous anger.”

He also called for “no violence,” as concerns mount about the possibility of more violent protests around Inauguration Day.

The president defended himself against criticism that his efforts to rile up his supporters about baseless claims of election fraud led to last week’s riot. “They’ve analyzed my speech…my final paragraph, my final sentence, and everybody just thought it was totally appropriate,” he said.

Speaking later Tuesday in Alamo, Texas, at an event intended to highlight his border-security policy, Mr. Trump called the efforts to pursue impeachment a second time a hoax and declared that the 25th Amendment was “of zero risk to me.”

“We believe in respecting America’s history and traditions, not tearing them down,” Mr. Trump said. “Now is the time for our nation to heal.”

So far no House Republicans have said they would vote to impeach Mr. Trump, though GOP aides expect some will likely vote to do so. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has said the president should be removed from office and Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan said Monday he was strongly considering impeachment. A group of 25 former GOP members of Congress sent a letter Monday pressing current Republicans to vote to impeach Mr. Trump.

After years of defending a president who upended the Republican Party, GOP lawmakers grappled with whether and how to split with Mr. Trump and how to move forward this year.

“We as a party, as members of the House, need to face reality and I think we are,” said Rep. Dan Meuser (R., Pa.). “There was a lot of wrong done here and we need to recognize that and do a lot better. We need to be the party that tells the truth.”

Last week’s siege forced lawmakers and aides to shelter in place and resulted in the death of a police officer and a rioter, as well as three others from medical emergencies. The riot, which halted for several hours the process of certifying Joe Biden as president, sparked sharp criticism not only of Mr. Trump but also of lawmakers who had supported Mr. Trump’s baseless challenges to the election result.

Businesses including Amazon.com Inc. and Comcast Inc. said they would stop donating to Republicans who objected to the certification of Mr. Biden’s election win.

Republicans found themselves facing other public repercussions of their willingness to back Mr. Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud. On Tuesday, the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School removed Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) from its senior advisory committee following her comments about election fraud, after she declined to step aside. Ms. Stefanik said it was a “rite of passage and badge of honor to join the long line of leaders who have been boycotted, protested and canceled by colleges and universities across America.”

Facing these pressures, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) outlined a slate of options under consideration by House Republicans on Monday that included a resolution of censure for the president.

“I have heard from members across our conference who have raised at least four potential avenues available to the House to ensure that the events of January 6 are rightfully denounced and prevented from occurring in the future,” Mr. McCarthy said in a letter to House Republicans Monday afternoon. In addition to censure, Republicans have discussed a bipartisan commission investigating the circumstances of last Wednesday’s violence and changes to the process of certifying states’ electoral votes, said Mr. McCarthy, long a close ally of the president.

Mr. McCarthy told Republicans on a call Monday afternoon that he had recently called Mr. Trump and told the president he bore some responsibility for the events of Jan. 6, according to someone familiar with the discussion.

Rep. Tom Reed (R., N.Y.) said Monday night that he would introduce a censure resolution on Tuesday against Mr. Trump “to ensure accountability occurs without delay for the events of Jan. 6,” he wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times. “We must also look at alternatives that could allow Congress to bar Mr. Trump from holding federal office in the future.”

Democratic leaders are plowing ahead with impeachment even with just over a week left in the Trump presidency. If the House reaches the majority needed to impeach Mr. Trump, the matter then goes to the Senate, where a two-thirds supermajority is required to convict.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D., Fla.), the co-chair of the centrist Blue Dog caucus, doesn’t see impeaching the president as nearly as tough of a vote politically as it was in 2019.

“The circumstances here are different [from the first impeachment]. The president emboldened, probably by the fealty that he has received from the Republican party, conducted his misdeeds in public,” she said in an interview, noting that the president tweeted unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and cast doubt on the results for months. “The evidence was out there for everyone to see.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has said there would be no time for a trial and vote before Inauguration Day, with the Senate not set to return from its recess until Jan. 19. But incoming leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) is exploring using a little-used emergency tool to call the Senate back sooner if needed, a Senate Democratic aide said. Mr. McConnell would need to agree, and a spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

As the controversy rages, Mr. Trump’s hold on the party appeared to be beginning to ebb.

“The aftermath of all of this has left Republicans very well positioned to offer Trump’s policies, which were very popular, without Trump’s bad behavior,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R., Calif.) said Monday night. “A new standard-bearer has emerged in Mike Pence, who handled himself magnificently in this crisis.” Last week, Mr. Pence issued a letter ruling out any effort to intervene on Mr. Trump’s behalf, defying repeated requests from Mr. Trump to throw out the results of the election.

The fallout has also raised new questions among House Republicans about the leadership of Mr. McCarthy, who had tethered himself to Mr. Trump as he consolidated power in the House GOP. Just days after House Republicans unanimously supported him during the speaker vote, Mr. McCarthy faced internal criticism for going along with GOP efforts to dispute Mr. Biden’s win.

One silver lining for Republicans is that Twitter Inc.’s permanent suspension of Mr. Trump’s personal account may make it harder for him to air his grievances against disfavored GOP lawmakers and rally his supporters to mount a primary challenge. But Republicans were also optimistic that their political fortunes would rise again if Democrats overplayed their hand and tried to push through a liberal agenda this year.

Before moving to impeach Mr. Trump, Democrats plan to bring up Tuesday night a measure to force him out of office through the 25th Amendment, whose use some Republicans, including Mr. Kinzinger, called for last week.

Ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment lays out the details of presidential succession in the event that a president dies or becomes ill. One section of the amendment allows for the vice president to take over the president’s duties if the vice president and the majority of the cabinet determine that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

That section of the amendment has never before been invoked. Congress would get the final say over whether the vice president can maintain the president’s powers, which would be decided by a two-thirds majority. Republicans have enough seats to block an incapacity vote in each house of Congress.

Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com and Natalie Andrews at Natalie.Andrews@wsj.com

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