Liz Cheney, John Katko will vote to impeach

Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, said Tuesday she will vote to impeach President Donald Trump, as at least four GOP lawmakers will move to charge the president from their own party with high crimes and misdemeanors.

She is the highest-ranking Republican to call for the president’s impeachment in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly Capitol Hill riot, which Trump helped incite with lies and incendiary rhetoric.

Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., earlier said he would support impeachment after the president stirred up a mob that attacked the Capitol last week while Congress counted President-elect Joe Biden’s presidential win. Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., later joined Cheney and Katko. The riot left five people, including a Capitol police officer, dead.

In a statement, Cheney said Trump “summoned this mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”

“Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President,” the Republican conference chair said.

“The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday evening that he will not remove Trump from office by invoking the 25th Amendment.

“I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution,” Pence wrote of the 25th Amendment in a letter to Pelosi.

Pence did not specifically mention the impeachment push. However, he did urge Congress “to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment” as “we prepare to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden as the next President of the United States.”

Meanwhile, the House plans to vote Wednesday on whether to charge Trump with high crimes and misdemeanors. Democrats have said they have enough votes to impeach the president for an unprecedented second time.

In a statement Tuesday evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named nine impeachment managers for the impending trial. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., will serve as the lead manager. He will be joined by Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate for the U.S. Virgin Islands, Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., and Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa.

Once the House impeaches Trump, the Senate will decide whether to convict him. The chamber may not have time to vote to remove him from office before Biden takes office a week from Wednesday.

Even so, conviction in the Senate would prevent Trump from becoming president again.