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Nancy Pelosi said she had spoken with the highest ranking officer in the US military about taking precautions to prevent an “unstable president from launching military hostilities or. . . order a nuclear attack ”.
The conversation between the Speaker of the House of Representatives and General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came as Democrats stepped up their efforts to forcibly remove President Donald Trump from office after violent mobs of his supporters they invaded the United States Capitol.
“This morning, I spoke with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, to discuss the precautions available to prevent an unstable President from initiating military hostilities or accessing launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to the democrats. colleagues.
He added: “The situation of this unhinged president could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy.”
A spokesman for General Milley, David Butler, confirmed that the call had gone through. “Spokesperson Pelosi initiated a call with the president. It answered their questions about the nuclear command authority process, ”he said.
The call between Pelosi and General Milley came as Democrats said they would push ahead with efforts to impeach Trump, after the prospect of removing him from office by invoking the 25th Amendment seemed to fade.
In her letter, Pelosi said there was “growing momentum around the invocation of the 25th Amendment,” which would allow Vice President Mike Pence and a majority of the Cabinet to remove Trump from the White House.
But she said Pence had refused to discuss invoking the amendment and that if he kept blocking, Democrats would try to impeach the president. “If the president does not leave office imminently and voluntarily, Congress will proceed with our action,” he wrote.
Katherine Clark, a Democratic congresswoman from Massachusetts and a member of Pelosi’s team, told CNN that House Democrats “would go ahead with impeachment. . . in the middle of next week ”.
The impetus for the impeachment comes despite Trump’s first conceded Thursday night that Joe Biden would become US president later this month.
Amid a series of resignations from the White House and mounting pressure from fellow Republicans, the president abruptly changed his tone in a short video during which he accused violent protesters of “desecrating the seat of American democracy” and saying that those who violated the law “will make it pay.”
But on Friday morning, the President returned to Twitter, from where he had been briefly kicked out after the assault on the Capitol, saying: “The 75,000,000 great American patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN , there will be a GIANT VOICE in the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way or form !!! “
Breaking tradition, Trump also said he would not attend Biden’s inauguration on January 20.
Trump was indicted in December 2019, when the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved two counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, related to the president’s proposals to the Ukrainian president to unearth Biden and his son Hunter. Later, the president was acquitted in a trial in the Republican Senate.
While the Democrats remained in the House after the November election with a diminished majority, they likely have enough votes to impeach Trump a second time.
That would add to the pressure on Republicans in the Senate, who are on the verge of losing control of the upper house after two runoff elections in Georgia earlier this week in which Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff ousted Democrats. Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
Two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to convict Trump in order for him to be removed from office. However, there would be little time to hold a trial before Biden takes office.
Mitt Romney, the Utah senator, was the only Republican to break ranks last time, voting to convict Trump of abuse of power. But after Wednesday’s events, there were some signs that sentiment within the president’s party was changing.
Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from Nebraska, told CBS News on Friday morning that he would “definitely consider” any impeachment article produced by Democrats.
“I think the president has disregarded his oath of office,” added Sasse. “What he did was wicked.”
Trump addressed a crowd of supporters on the Washington Mall hours before they stormed the United States Capitol on Wednesday, saying: “We will never give up. We will never give in. “
The violent clashes on Capitol Hill resulted in the deaths of five people, including a United States Capitol police officer. Pelosi said Friday that she ordered the Capitol flags to be flown at half mast in honor of the officer, Brian Sicknick, who had been trying to push back the rioters.
Trump initially responded to Wednesday’s siege by telling his supporters: “We love you, you are very special. . . I know how you feel, but go home and go in peace. “
Betsy DeVos, secretary of education, and Elaine Chao, secretary of transportation, were among the members of the president’s administration who resigned from their positions with less than two weeks to Biden’s inauguration.
His resignations cast doubt on whether the 25th Amendment could be invoked, given that the majority of the president’s cabinet would need to support his removal.
How does the 25th amendment work?
Although there are only two weeks left in Donald Trump’s presidency, some in Washington are talking about invoking the 25th amendment to the United States constitution to remove him from office immediately.
The constitutional amendment was proposed in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and was intended to provide a plan of what to do if a president was incapacitated.
Under this law, a president can be relieved of his power if he cannot fulfill his duties or if others in the government deem him incapable of doing so.
It is not easy to invoke the 25th Amendment without the consent of the President. The vice president has to sign a letter testifying that the president cannot fulfill his duties, along with the majority of the cabinet or top officials of another body designated by Congress.
If sufficient support is obtained, the vice president automatically assumes the role of interim president. If the president challenges the decision, Congress would vote on whether that person can continue to serve. A two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress is required to override the president’s objections.
Parts of the 25th amendment have been used before. Richard Nixon used the rule to appoint Gerald Ford as his vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned. Ford then used it to take over as president after Nixon’s resignation.
George W Bush also used the amendment twice, temporarily handing over power to his vice president, Dick Cheney, while he underwent general anesthesia for colonoscopies. He resumed control hours later on both occasions.
The amendment has never been used by others in government to remove a president.
