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Trump becomes first president to be impeached twice

13 January 2021
Dan Ackermann

The House voted 232-197 to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection" after a violent pro-Trump mob breached the U.S. Capitol last week while Congress met to count the Electoral College vote.

Why it matters: Trump is now the only president in history to have been impeached twice — his first impeachment happened just over a year ago in December of 2019. He has just one week left in his term before President-elect Biden is sworn-in on Jan. 20.

  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Republican colleagues today he has "not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate.” But he will not move to reconvene the Senate before they are scheduled to return on Jan. 19, meaning a trial may not take place until Joe Biden takes office.
  • Axios' Mike Allen reports that sources say McConnell sees this fight as his legacy — defending the Senate and the institution against the verbal attack of the president and the literal attack of his followers. As of Tuesday night he was leaning towards convicting Trump, Allen reports.

The big picture: After four years of unpredictable behavior and controversial policy, swaths of Republicans have finally begun to turn on Trump after a mob breached the Capitol last week, causing mass evacuations and at least five deaths. Ten House Republicans on Wednesday voted to impeach him.

  • Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who is in GOP leadership, and several other House Republicans announced before the vote that they would vote to impeach Trump. "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," Cheney said.
  • Trump encouraged his supporters at the rally on Jan. 6 to march to the Capitol.
  • While he did tell later demonstrators to "go home," Trump also insisted on Twitter: "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office before proceeding with impeachment. The House approved a resolution pressuring Pence to do just that.

  • Pence declined. Three Cabinet members who would have been involved in 25th amendment proceedings have also resigned.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.