Two dozen congressmen and women call for Trump impeachment

Calls for the president’s removal echoed among lawmakers across the political spectrum

Calls for impeachment of Donald Trump gained momentum after more than two dozen lawmakers demanded that the outgoing president, seen as the main instigator behind the Capitol Hill riots on Wednesday, be ousted from office. 

The lawmakers, across the ideological spectrum, have asked that Mr Trump be removed either through impeachment or through the 25th amendment, after his supporters breached the perimeter of US Capitol building to disrupt the congressional affirmation of Joe Biden as the next president of the country. 

Within hours of Mr Trump continuing his unsubstantiated claims of a rigged election, his supporters shattered glass and forced entry into both the House and the Senate, where lawmakers, including vice president Mike Pence, were slated to certify Mr Biden’s victory after hearing the Republican challenge to the 2020 presidential election results. 

The list of representatives seeking to constitutionally purge the president from the Oval Office before the completion of his last 14 days includes Katherine Clark, assistant speaker of the House and congresswoman from Massachusetts. She said: “Donald Trump is a traitor to our country and our Constitution. He must be removed from office and prevented from further endangering our country and our people.” 

Congressman Earl Blumenauer extended his support to invoke the 25th Amendment for the removal of the President. “This madman must be removed as soon as possible and we can’t allow him to burn the house down as he goes out the door," he tweeted. 

The representative also slammed the Republicans who encouraged the president’s conspiracy theory and said, “seeing reports that a certain cabinet secretary is considering resigning. If you are a member of Trump's cabinet, anything less than organising to invoke the 25th Amendment is cowardice (and it's too late to save your soul and reputation),” he wrote. 

The push for impeachment got support from a number of progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio Cortex, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. 

“I am drawing up Articles of Impeachment. Donald J Trump should be impeached by the House of Representatives & removed from office by the United States Senate,” Ms Omar, a second-term Minnesota Democrat, tweeted. “We can’t allow him to remain in office, it’s a matter of preserving our Republic and we need to fulfil our oath." 

"Trump is directly responsible for this insurrection and violence. He needs to be removed from office immediately. It is the Constitutional responsibility of Vice President Pence and the cabinet to exercise the power granted them by the 25th amendment,” tweeted Congressman Seth Moulton, a moderate Democrat from Massachusetts.

Calling for accountability from lawmakers who supported the president’s claim of electoral fraud, freshman representative Cori Bush on Wednesday introduced a resolution to investigate and possibly remove all such House members.

"I believe the Republican members of Congress who have incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election must face consequences," she tweeted. "They have broken their sacred Oath of Office. I will be introducing a resolution calling for their expulsion."

The Lincoln Project, a political action committee, also joined the list of those calling on the House to impeach the outgoing president. 

"This is a dark, dark day in American history. It's the culmination of what a lot of us have been warning about for the past four years," said  Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant and co-founder of The Lincoln Project.