Calling on Vice President Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President.

Whereas on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the day fixed by the Constitution for the counting of electoral votes, Congress experienced a massive violent invasion of the United States Capitol and its complex by a dangerous insurrectionary mob which smashed windows and used violent physical force and weapons to overpower and outmaneuver the United States Capitol Police and facilitated the illegal entry into the Capitol of hundreds, if not thousands, of unauthorized persons (all of whom entered the Capitol complex without going through metal detectors and other security screening devices);

Whereas, the insurrectionary mob threatened the safety and lives of the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the first three individuals in the line of succession to the presidency, as the rioters were recorded chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and “Where’s Nancy” when President Donald J. Trump tweeted to his supporters that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country” after the Capitol had been overrun and the Vice President was in hiding;

Whereas the insurrectionary mob attacked law enforcement officers, unleashed chaos and terror among Members and staffers and their families, occupied the Senate Chamber and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office along with other leadership offices, vandalized and pilfered government property, and succeeded in interfering with the counting of electoral votes in the joint session of Congress;

Whereas the insurrectionary mob’s violent attacks on law enforcement and invasion of the Capitol complex caused the unprecedented disruption of the Electoral College count process for a 4-hour period in both the House and the Senate, a dangerous and destabilizing impairment of the peaceful transfer of power that these insurrectionary riots were explicitly designed to cause;

Whereas 5 Americans have died as a result of injuries or traumas suffered during this violent attack on Congress and the Capitol, including Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick and Ashli Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, Kevin Greeson, and Benjamin Phillips, and more than 50 police officers were seriously injured, including 15 officers who had to be hospitalized, by violent assaults, and there could easily have been dozens or hundreds more wounded and killed, a sentiment captured by Senator Lindsey Graham, who observed that “the mob could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all”;

Whereas these insurrectionary protests were widely advertised and broadly encouraged by President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly urged his millions of followers on Twitter and other social media outlets to come to Washington on January 6 to “Stop the Steal” of the 2020 Presidential election and promised his activist followers that the protest on the Electoral College counting day would be “wild”;

Whereas President-elect Joseph R. Biden won the 2020 Presidential election with more than 81 million votes and defeated President Trump 306–232 in the Electoral College, a margin pronounced to be a “landslide” by President Trump when he won by the same Electoral College numbers in 2016, but President Trump never accepted these election results as legitimate and waged a protracted campaign of propaganda and coercive pressure in the Federal and State courts, in the state legislatures, with Secretaries of State, and in Congress to nullify and overturn these results and replace them with fraudulent and fabricated numbers;

Whereas President Trump made at least 3 attempts to intervene in the lawful vote counting and certification process in Georgia and to coerce officials there into fraudulently declaring him the winner of the State’s electoral votes, including calls to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and a State elections investigator, and an hour-long conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger badgering him to “find 11,780 votes” and warning of a “big risk” to Raffensperger if he did not intervene favorably to guarantee the reelection of President Trump;

Whereas President Trump appeared with members of his staff and family at a celebratory kickoff rally to encourage and charge up the rioters and insurrectionists to “walk down to the Capitol” and “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” on Wednesday, January 6, 2021;

Whereas while violent insurrectionists occupied parts of the Capitol, President Trump ignored or rejected repeated real-time entreaties from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to appeal to his followers to exit the Capitol, and also ignored a tweet from Alyssa Farah, his former communications director, saying: “Condemn this now, @realDonaldTrump—you are the only one they will listen to. For our country!”;

Whereas photographs, cell phone videos, social media posts, and on-the-ground reporting show that numerous violent insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol were armed, were carrying police grade flex cuffs to detain and handcuff people, used mace, pepper spray, and bear spray against United States Capitol Police officers, erected a gallows on Capitol grounds to hang “traitors,” vehemently chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” while surrounding and roving the Capitol, emphasized that storming the Capitol was “a revolution,” brandished the Confederate battle flag inside the Capitol, and were found to be in possession of Napalm B, while still unidentified culprits planted multiple pipe bombs at buildings near the Capitol complex, another lethally dangerous criminal action that succeeded in diverting law enforcement from the Capitol; and

Whereas Donald Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, continuously, and spectacularly his absolute inability to discharge the most basic and fundamental powers and duties of his office, including most recently the duty to respect the legitimate results of the Presidential election, the duty to respect the peaceful transfer of democratic power under the Constitution, the duty to participate in legally defined transition activities, the duty to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States, including the counting of Electoral College votes by Congress, the duty to protect the people of the United States and their elected representatives against domestic insurrection, mob rule, and seditious violence, and generally the duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives calls upon Vice President Michael R. Pence—

(1) to immediately use his powers under section 4 of the 25th Amendment to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments in the Cabinet to declare what is obvious to a horrified Nation: That the President is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office; and

Sen. Patrick Leahy
January 25, 2020

[Last week, for the third time in his 46 years as a United States Senator, Senator Leahy was sworn in as president pro tempore of the Senate.  The president pro tempore is a constitutional officer, responsible for presiding over the Senate in the absence of the vice president.  For more than 70 years, the senator holding the office of the president pro tempore has stood third in line in the order of succession to be president.  Throughout the nation’s history, each president pro tempore has almost without exception belonged to a political party, and each, representing the people of his state, has no doubt had their own personal and political views on the matters before the Senate.  Yet when presiding over the Senate, the president pro tempore has historically served as a neutral arbiter, issuing rulings where appropriate and preserving order.]

“The president pro tempore has historically presided over Senate impeachment trials of non-presidents.  When presiding over an impeachment trial, the president pro tempore takes an additional special oath to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws.  It is an oath that I take extraordinarily seriously.

“I consider holding the office of the president pro tempore and the responsibilities that come with it to be one of the highest honors and most serious responsibilities of my career.  When I preside over the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, I will not waver from my constitutional and sworn obligations to administer the trial with fairness, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws.

The brief lays out the case for the conviction of former President Trump for “incitement of insurrection against the Republic he swore to protect.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
February 13, 2021

Pelosi Remarks at Press Availability Following Conclusion of Donald Trump’s Impeachment Trial in the Senate

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined House Impeachment Managers for a press availability following the conclusion of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.  Below are the Speaker’s remarks:

Speaker Pelosi.  It had not been my intention to come to this press availability,  however tempting it would be to sing the praises of our House Managers on behalf, not only of the House of Representatives, on behalf of the American people.  And I have to say, personally, on behalf of my grandchildren who drew great hope and inspiration from each and every one of you, we could not be prouder of your patriotic presentations, the clarity with which you presented and, again, the inspiration you have been to so many people, so I thank you for that.

When I see all of them, it reminds me that when we recruit candidates to run for office or we see them self-recruiting, we always say – they’ll say, well, ‘I could be the President of my university or I could be the head of my hospital department or this or that, so I have to think about whether I run for Congress.’  We always say, ‘We don't want anybody without options.  That’s why we're looking for you to run, because you have options.  That shouldn't be a reason for you not to run.’

But what we saw in that Senate today was a cowardly group of Republicans who apparently have no options because they were afraid to defend their job, respect the institution in which they serve.  Imagine that it would be vandalized in so many bad ways that I won't even go into here, and that they would not respect their institution.  That the President of the Senate, Mike Pence – ‘Hang Mike Pence’ was the chant and they just dismissed that.  Why?  Because maybe they can't get another job.  What is so important about any one of us?  What is so important about the political survival of any one of us that is more important than our Constitution that we take an oath to protect and defend?  

But why I came over was because I listened to Mitch McConnell.  Mitch McConnell, who when this distinguished group of House Managers were gathered on January 15th to deliver the Article of Impeachment could not – we're told it could not be received because Mitch McConnell had shut down the Senate and was going to keep it shut down until right, until the inauguration.

So for him to get up there and make this indictment against the President and then say but ‘I can't, I can’t vote for it because it's after the fact.’  The fact that he established!  The fact that he established that it could not be delivered before the inauguration.

Now, when you think about January 6th, between 6th and January 20th, you're only talking about just under two weeks, a day under two weeks.  So, the big lie, ‘Stop the steal,’ the big lie that you talked about, ‘Stop the steal,’ was the momentum for getting these people there on the 6th.  They honestly believed for whatever reason, maybe too much social media, whatever – watch ‘[The Social Dilemma],’ that movie – why they were thinking that that was true, that their election was not legitimate, whatever the reason their President told.  So, okay, so that's the 6th.

A week later we impeach in the House.  Thank you to those of you who participated right away:  Jamie Raskin, Ted Lieu and David Cicilline.  Where’s David?  David Cicilline.  They were – they had it all written up and ready to go, bipartisanly passed the House.  And then two days later, ready with the case to take to the Senate.  ‘Oh, we can't receive it.’  Not a question – by the law you're supposed to receive it and the next day start the trial.

So, for Mitch McConnell, who created the situation where it could not have been heard before the 20th or even begun before the 20th in the Senate, to say all the things he said, oh, my gosh, about Donald Trump and how horrible he was and is, and then say, ‘But the time that the House chose to bring it over’ – no, we didn't choose.  You chose not to receive it.  So, I think that's really important.

And then again, it doesn't matter.  As Jamie and others have told us, you can have the case after the person is out of office so it's an elementary discussion.  The Senate rules in that way and honoring of precedent on this.  It didn't matter except it was not the reason that he voted the way he did.  It was the excuse that he used.  And so that’s why I think it’s important because that was a very important speech.

I thought Chuck Schumer's speech was remarkable in laying it all out.  I think he was inspired by all of you because you raised the level of all this to such a place of patriotism and knowledge of our country, our history and what we owe our children.  Again, we always say: honoring the vision our Founders, worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform and respecting the aspirations of our children.  They did all of that.  And as Jamie – the distinguished Lead Manager said earlier on this presidential weekend, our sense of patriotism is stirred and we're called upon in a stronger way.

So, I want to thank them.  I want to thank Stacey Plaskett.  Thank you, Stacey.  Thank you, Madeleine Dean.  Thank you very much, Joe Neguse.  Thank you, Eric Swalwell.  Thank you, Diana DeGette.  Thank you, David Cicilline.  Thank you, Ted Lieu.  Thank you, Joaquin Castro.  Thank you very much, Mr. Lead Manager on all of this.  We just couldn't be prouder.  

I’ve been hearing from my grandchildren who are very sad that justice wasn't done.  But by [fourteen] votes, the Senate voted to convict.  A good bipartisan statement about what has happened.  It would not have been accomplished without your brilliant presentation.  So, I thank you for that.  And I yield the Floor back to all of you as I leave.

[Crosstalk]

Congressman Raskin.  Madam Speaker, thank you for your confidence in us.  I was going to go next to Scott.  Were you going to take the next one, David?

Q:  I’m curious though – for the Speaker, if she had a comment about Mitch McConnell's statement on the Floor suggestion that President Trump still was liable criminally or civilly for everything he did in office.  Do you think now that the Justice Department or State Attorney General should pursue the legal –

Speaker Pelosi.  He even hedged on that.  Remember when he talked about incitement, he said he didn't think this rose to a level – I’m going to tell you.  So, he was hedging all over the place.  I don't know whether it was for donors or what.  But whatever it was, it was a very disingenuous speech.  And I say that regretfully because I always want to be able to work, work with the leadership of the other party.  I think our country needs a strong Republican party.  It's very important.  And for him to have tried to have it every which way.

But we will be going forward to make sure that this never happens again in terms of what we’re doing to investigate and evaluate what caused this, both in terms of the motivation but also in terms of the security that we have to have as we go forward, recognizing how inflaming even some of our elected officials can be.  But I defer to all of these distinguished lawyers about –

[Laughter]   

Congressman Raskin.  Alright.  Let's see.

Q:  Speaker Pelosi, is censure an option right now?

Congressman Raskin.  I’ll come to you and then I’ll come to you.  I’m sorry.

Q:  Is censure an option right now?

Speaker Pelosi.  Censure is a slap in the face of the Constitution that gives – lets everybody off the hook.  It lets everybody off the hook.  Oh, these cowardly Senators who couldn't face up to what the President did and what was at stake for our country are now going to have a chance to give a slap on the wrist?  

We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose.  We don't censure people for inciting insurrection that kills people in the Capitol. 

---

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
February 13, 2020

McConnell on Impeachment: “Disgraceful Dereliction” Cannot Lead Senate to “Defy Our Own Constitutional Guardrails”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the impeachment trial:

“January 6th was a disgrace.

“American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.                           

“Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President.

“They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.

***

“Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty.

“The House accused the former President of, quote, ‘incitement.’ That is a specific term from the criminal law.

“Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President.

“And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

“The issue is not only the President’s intemperate language on January 6th.

“It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat.’

“It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-President.

“I defended the President’s right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.

“But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims.

“The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.

“Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally.

“This was different.

“This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.

***

“The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began.

“Whatever our ex-President claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.

“A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.

“It was obvious that only President Trump could end this.

“Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration.

“But the President did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.

“Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!

“Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the President sent a further tweet attacking his Vice President.

“Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.

“Later, even when the President did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later.

“And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.

“In recent weeks, our ex-President’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism.

“Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters.

“That is an absurd deflection.

“74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did.

“And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.

“One person did.

***

“I have made my view of this episode very plain.

“But our system of government gave the Senate a specific task. The Constitution gives us a particular role.

“This body is not invited to act as the nation’s overarching moral tribunal.

“We are not free to work backward from whether the accused party might personally deserve some kind of punishment.

“Justice Joseph Story was our nation’s first great constitutional scholar. As he explained nearly 200 years ago, the process of impeachment and conviction is a narrow tool for a narrow purpose.

“Story explained this limited tool exists to “secure the state against gross official misdemeanors.” That is, to protect the country from government officers.

“If President Trump were still in office, I would have carefully considered whether the House managers proved their specific charge.

“By the strict criminal standard, the President’s speech probably was not incitement.

“However, in the context of impeachment, the Senate might have decided this was acceptable shorthand for the reckless actions that preceded the riot.

“But in this case, that question is moot. Because former President Trump is constitutionally not eligible for conviction.

***

“There is no doubt this is a very close question. Donald Trump was the President when the House voted, though not when the House chose to deliver the papers.

“Brilliant scholars argue both sides of the jurisdictional question. The text is legitimately ambiguous. I respect my colleagues who have reached either conclusion.

“But after intense reflection, I believe the best constitutional reading shows that Article II, Section 4 exhausts the set of persons who can legitimately be impeached, tried, or convicted. The President, Vice President, and civil officers.

“We have no power to convict and disqualify a former officeholder who is now a private citizen.

“Here is Article II, Section 4:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

“Now, everyone basically agrees that the second half of that sentence exhausts the legitimate grounds for conviction.

“The debates around the Constitution’s framing make that clear. Congress cannot convict for reasons besides those.

“It therefore follows that the list of persons in that same sentence is also exhaustive. There is no reason why one list would be exhaustive but the other would not.

“Article II, Section 4 must limit both why impeachment and conviction can occur… and to whom.

“If this provision does not limit the impeachment and conviction powers, then it has no limits at all.

“The House’s ‘sole power of Impeachment’ and the Senate’s ‘sole Power to try all Impeachments’ would create an unlimited circular logic, empowering Congress to ban any private citizen from federal office.

“This is an incredible claim. But it is the argument the House Managers seemed to make. One Manager said the House and Senate have ‘absolute, unqualified… jurisdictional power.’

“That was very honest. Because there is no limiting principle in the constitutional text that would empower the Senate to convict former officers that would not also let them convict and disqualify any private citizen.

“An absurd end result to which no one subscribes.

“Article II, Section 4 must have force. It tells us the President, Vice President, and civil officers may be impeached and convicted. Donald Trump is no longer the president.

“Likewise, the provision states that officers subject to impeachment and conviction ‘shall be removed from Office’ if convicted.

“Shall.

“As Justice Story explained, ‘the Senate, [upon] conviction, [is] bound, in all cases, to enter a judgment of removal from office.’ Removal is mandatory upon conviction.

“Clearly, he explained, that mandatory sentence cannot be applied to somebody who has left office.

“The entire process revolves around removal. If removal becomes impossible, conviction becomes insensible.

***

“In one light, it certainly does seem counterintuitive that an officeholder can elude Senate conviction by resignation or expiration of term.

“But this just underscores that impeachment was never meant to be the final forum for American justice.

“Impeachment, conviction, and removal are a specific intra-governmental safety valve. It is not the criminal justice system, where individual accountability is the paramount goal.

“Indeed, Justice Story specifically reminded that while former officials were not eligible for impeachment or conviction, they were “still liable to be tried and punished in the ordinary tribunals of justice.”

“We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former Presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.

***

“I believe the Senate was right not to grab power the Constitution does not give us.

“And the Senate was right not to entertain some light-speed sham process to try to outrun the loss of jurisdiction.

“It took both sides more than a week just to produce their pre-trial briefs. Speaker Pelosi’s own scheduling decisions conceded what President Biden publicly confirmed: A Senate verdict before Inauguration Day was never possible.

“This has been a dispiriting time. But the Senate has done our duty. The framers’ firewall held up again.

“On January 6th, we returned to our posts and certified the election, uncowed.

“And since then, we resisted the clamor to defy our own constitutional guardrails in hot pursuit of a particular outcome.

“We refused to continue a cycle of recklessness by straining our own constitutional boundaries in response.

“The Senate’s decision does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day.

“It simply shows that Senators did what the former President failed to do:

“We put our constitutional duty first.”

I want to first thank my team of dedicated lawyers and others for their tireless work upholding justice and defending truth.
 
My deepest thanks as well to all of the United States Senators and Members of Congress who stood proudly for the Constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.

Our cherished Constitutional Republic was founded on the impartial rule of law, the indispensable safeguard for our liberties, our rights and our freedoms.
 
It is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free pass to denigrate the rule of law, defame law enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters, and transform justice into a tool of political vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel and suppress all people and viewpoints with whom or which they disagree. I always have, and always will, be a champion for the unwavering rule of law, the heroes of law enforcement, and the right of Americans to peacefully and honorably debate the issues of the day without malice and without hate. 
 
This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago. 

I also want to convey my gratitude to the millions of decent, hardworking, law-abiding, God-and-Country loving citizens who have bravely supported these important principles in these very difficult and challenging times.  
 
Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!
 
We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future. 
 
Together there is nothing we cannot accomplish. 
 
We remain one People, one family, and one glorious nation under God, and it’s our responsibility to preserve this magnificent inheritance for our children and for generations of Americans to come.
 
May God bless all of you, and may God forever bless the United States of America,

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