Democrats File Article of Impeachment Charging Donald Trump With ‘Incitement of Insurrection’

House Democrats on Monday formally introduced their article of impeachment against President Donald Trump, charging him with “incitement of insurrection” following the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol last week. The single impeachment article was introduced Monday as the House convened for a brief pro-forma session. Should Trump be impeached, he would be the first president in history to be impeached twice.

The four-page impeachment bill cites Trump’s speech to supporters on Jan. 6 near the White House just before the crowd moved to the Capitol, during which “he reiterated false claims that ‘we won this election, and we won it by a landslide.’” The article says, “thus incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had addressed, in an attempt to, among other objectives, interfere with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the results of the 2020 Presidential election, unlawfully breached and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress, the Vice President, and Congressional personnel, and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts.”

The impeachment bill says the president’s remarks on Jan. 6 “followed his prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the certification” of the election results. It draws on the president’s leaked phone call with the Republican Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked him to “find” enough votes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state and also cites the president’s repeated “false statements” of widespread voter fraud and statements that the election “should not be accepted by the American people or certified by State or Federal officials.” The legislation states, “in all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government.”

“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government,” the resolution says. “He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States… He will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”

From Reps. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Ted Lieu of California, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and Jerrold Nadler of New York, the bill accuses Trump of “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States,” a charge that amounts to “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and is therefore an impeachable offense. The resolution cites the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, noting that it “prohibits any person who has ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against’ the United States” from holding office. According to CNN, the House is poised to vote on the impeachment resolution later this week.