Schumer Calls for Trump to Be Removed From Office by Cabinet

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Jan 07 2021, 10:12 PMJan 07 2021, 11:24 PMJanuary 07 2021, 10:12 PMJanuary 07 2021, 11:24 PM

(Bloomberg) -- Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called for President Donald Trump to be immediately removed from office, saying he incited insurrection against the government by encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.

Schumer, who is set to become majority leader, said in a statement that Vice President Mike Pence should invoke the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, using support of the cabinet to take over in the Oval Office until Joe Biden is inaugurated on Jan. 20.

“If the vice president and the cabinet refuse to stand up, Congress should reconvene to impeach the president,” Schumer said in a statement.

Schumer is the highest-ranking official yet to call for Trump to be removed. A number of rank-and-file Democrats have urged Trump’s impeachment, and a Republican, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, earlier backed ousting the president via the 25th Amendment.

“Not only has the president abdicated his duty to protect the American people and the people’s house, he invoked and inflamed passions that only gave fuel to the insurrection that we saw here,” Kinzinger said in a tweeted video statement. “The president is unfit and the president is unwell and the president must now relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily.”

One senior Republican senator told White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that the cabinet should consider removing Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment if he doesn’t stop inciting violence, a person familiar with the matter said.

The 25th Amendment provides for the removal of the president if the vice president and a majority of the cabinet determines that he or she is “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the office. If the president contests the finding, and the vice president and cabinet persist, Congress can order the president’s removal by a two-thirds vote in both chambers.

The outcry stemmed from the violence Wednesday, when a mob of Trump supporters broke through police lines and invaded the Capitol, disrupting a joint session of Congress convened to formally count the Electoral College votes from the November presidential election. Trump has promised an orderly transition of power but has refused to acknowledge his election loss to Biden.

It’s not clear yet whether significant numbers of Republicans would follow such a call, though some explicitly blamed Trump for whipping his supporters into a frenzy and said he bore responsibility for Wednesday’s events.

Impeachment and removal from office would require a bare majority in the House but two-thirds of the Senate.

Only one Republican, Senator Mitt Romney, voted to convict Trump after his impeachment last year. Convicting Trump would require many more Republicans to vote in favor.

Romney on Wednesday said there is probably too little time before Trump is out of office on Jan. 20 to begin impeachment proceedings again.

Asked whether the 25th Amendment should be used, he told reporters, “I think we have to hold our breath for the next 20 days.”

Many of Trump’s GOP allies also have distanced themselves from the president after Wednesday’s violence.

House Judiciary Committee Democrats led by Representatives David Cicilline, Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin said Thursday they are circulating articles of impeachment of Trump charging him with “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States” and calling for him to be immediately removed from office and barred from holding any U.S. office again.

“President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government,” they wrote. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power and imperiled a coordinate branch of government.”