January 13, 2021

Trump Just Became the First President in US History to Be Impeached Twice

Follow our liveblog on today’s historic proceedings.

Trump salutes as he steps off Air Force One, Jan. 12, 2021.Miguel Roberts/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Good morning, and welcome to the second impeachment of President Donald Trump. 

More Republicans are coming out in support of impeachment ahead of today’s House vote on the charge that the president incited the violent insurrection that stormed the Capitol exactly one week ago. In a statement explaining her decision, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the most powerful Republican so far to publicly join Democrats in the push for Trump’s removal, excoriated the president’s conduct as the greatest “betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.” That comes hours after the New York Times reported that Mitch McConnell privately believes Trump has committed impeachable offenses and could also be on board.

Wednesday’s vote, which is widely expected to pass, would make Trump the first president in US history to be impeached twice. Follow along for the latest on the historic proceedings:

6:30 p.m. ET: Trump, who is permanently banned from Twitter, released a video statement through the White House account finally condemning last week’s violence on the Capitol—and admitting no fault of his own.

After stating, “I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week,” Trump appeared to give credence to the unproven claim that people who stormed the Capitol were Antifa members in disguise. “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence,” he said. “No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement or our great American flag. No true supporter of mine could ever threaten or harass their fellow Americans.”

The president—who still receives constant media coverage, holds press conferences, accesses the White House Twitter account, and can utter just about whatever he wants as long as it doesn’t constitute hate speech, a threat, or a disturbance of the peace—concluded by implying that the banning of his Twitter account constituted an infringement of his First Amendment rights. “The efforts to censor, cancel, and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong, and they are dangerous,” he said. “What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another.” These calls for unity come off a little hollow after Trump incited a mob because he couldn’t admit that he lost an election.

6:10 p.m. ET: Nancy Pelosi just signed the article of impeachment in a brief ceremony.

4:45 p.m. ET: It’s official: Trump has been impeached for the second time.

3:55 p.m. ET: The House is voting on the impeachment resolution. It should take a while, since dozens of representatives have requested proxy votes.

2:00 p.m. ET: Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), whom my colleague Kara Voght profiled in July, called out Trump’s racism—only to be met with boos from House Republicans.

“If we fail to remove a white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s 1st District that suffer the most,” she said. “The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives. The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy, starting with impeaching the white supremacist in chief.”

1:30 p.m. ET: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who helped draft the article of impeachment the day after his late son’s funeral, gave an impassioned speech about the danger of the mob that stormed the Capitol last week—and the futility of trying to appease them.

“Smashing windows and beating police officers over the head with fire extinguishers, a bloodthirsty mob attacked the Capitol and invaded this Congress last Wednesday,” he said. “It’s a bit much to be hearing that these people would not be trying to destroy our government and kill us if we just weren’t so mean to them.”

1:15 p.m. ET: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi kicked off the impeachment debate:

11:45 a.m. ET: Pelosi takes a moment to thank National Guard troops who have been deployed around the Capitol.

11:00 a.m. ET: Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that Trump is escalating his discussions for a preemptive pardon for himself and his children in the wake of last week’s pro-Trump riot.

9:30 a.m. ET: Rep. Jim McGovern kicked off the morning with a powerful speech.

8:40 a.m. ET: Law enforcement officials and National Guardsmen are on high alert in advance of today’s vote. Some scenes emerging from the Capitol this morning:

8:00 a.m. ET: As we wait for things to get underway, my colleague Mark Follman has a look at what national security experts are saying in the wake of last week’s violence and growing fears of law enforcement complicity. Here’s a key section:

Remarkably, some national security experts who have sounded the alarm about Trump’s many months of deliberately inciting violence are now talking about the end game of his presidency in the stark terms of counterterrorism. Trump must be seen as “the operational leader of this domestic terrorism effort,” said Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security, who was among the first experts to call out Trump’s use of terrorist tactics. “He tells them where to go. He tells them what to do. He tells them why they’re angry. So we need to start at the top, like with any counterterrorism effort, which is total isolation of the president of the United States. Impeachment, yes. Twenty-fifth amendment, yes. Deplatforming, yes. No money, no access to campaign funds…What we have to make sure [of] is that Donald Trump does not have a second act.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate