Democratic lawmakers are continuing their effort to scrub President Donald Trump out of his office, even if it means removing him 15 minutes before the official end of his term on January 20th, sixty seconds before incoming President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “prayerfully” sent an update to her Democratic Colleagues on her efforts in a letter this Sunday in which she said their next actions would be made “with the great solemnity that this moment requires.”
During her weekend however, Pelosi also found time to discuss her feelings about the president in an entirely different manner on the CBS News program 60 Minutes with anchor Lesley Stahl, who asked Pelosi during the interview, “Is anyone running the executive branch of the government? Who is running the government?”
Pelosi replied,”The person who is running the Executive Branch of our government is a deranged, unhinged, and dangerous president of the United States, and there will be a number of days until we can be protected from him. But he has done something so serious that there should be prosecution against him.”
But getting back to her dignified letter to her Democratic Colleagues, Pelosi made careful preparations for this week’s events.
The moment of “great solemnity” she referred to was a request by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer for a Unanimous Consent to move for a Raskin resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to convene the Cabinet to use Article 4 under the 25th Amendment to declare the president incapable of executing the duties of his office. After doing so, Pence would then have to immediately exercise powers as Acting President.
Such a scenario had already been discussed with Pence, and he had dismissed it as not feasible.
And in the Congressional Chambers, when the resolution authored by Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin – a constitutional scholar – was introduced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Republican Representative Alex Mooney of West Virginia rose to object.
Hoyer later told reporters the full House will vote on the resolution Tuesday, and vote for final passage Tuesday evening, forcing Republicans to oppose the 25th Amendment three times.
“If the legislation is rejected . . . “we will proceed with bringing impeachment legislation to the Floor,” Pelosi wrote in her update.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she continued.
“As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action,” she wrote, thanking everyone for their “patriotism” and signing off “prayerfully” as “Nancy.”
Indeed, the lawmakers have already introduced a single article of impeachment in which they have accused the president of inciting a violent insurrection to stop the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory through a count of the Electoral College votes by Congress.
If the vote is – as Hoyer has said it will be – fast-tracked, and passed, it would make Trump the first president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives.
That could happen as soon as Wednesday. Or not at all.