More than a dozen organizations including leading immigrant rights advocacy groups are calling for the “immediate impeachment, removal, and prosecution” of Donald Trump following his incitement of a violent mob that sacked the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Following the white seditionist siege, five people, including a Capitol police officer, are dead.
“Donald Trump incited today’s violent attack on our democracy,” organizations including the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) and Presente said in the statement. “Every moment that he remains in office is a severe danger to our country. Congress must respond decisively and immediately. We call on Congress to immediately certify the election, impeach and remove Trump, and refer him for prosecution.”
The organizations also call for legislators who aided Trump in inciting this violent seditionist mob, including Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Missouri (though he actually lives in Virginia) Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, to be punished by Congress. “Further, all members of Congress who joined Trump in inciting today’s violent coup attempt based on baseless, provable lies must be held accountable through censure, expulsion, or other means,” the organizations continue.
“As of Friday morning, 159 House Democrats and 22 Senate Democrats have issued statements supporting impeachment,” Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter writes. “A Republican, Sen. Ben Sasse, is also on board, saying that he will ‘definitely consider whatever articles [the House] might move because I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office. … What he did was wicked.’”
Yet Vice President Mike Pence, who has the power to begin the process to remove Trump from office using the 25th Amendment, is nowhere to be found. But that’s because Pence is also a soulless charlatan who cast away the couple of convictions he may have had to become a starry-eyed sidekick to a reality show host authoritarian.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that the House “may be prepared” to go ahead with impeachment if Pence doesn’t act first, but his inaction as Donald Trump continues to remain an ongoing threat to democratic values has made it clear the House must go ahead and act first—and now. “We cannot wait one day longer,” tweeted Faith for Black Lives, another one of the leading organizations to have signed the letter. “Congress must act TODAY.”
