Trump Impeached A Historic 2nd Time; New Threats Put U.S. On Edge

Updated at 6:45 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON, DC — Ten Republicans broke ranks with their party Wednesday and voted to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time for inciting the deadly Capitol insurrection last week. The final vote was 232-197 in favor of impeaching Trump — a stunning indictment for a sitting president with only seven days left in his presidency, but who House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ominously warned "is a clear and present danger to the nation we all love."

With the most bipartisan vote on impeachment in U.S. history, Trump's legacy is sealed as the only U.S. president to be impeached twice. But the vast majority of House Republicans voted against impeaching him, a signal Trump's aggressive brand of populism has a home in the GOP.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking member of the House Republican leadership, led the Republican defections, saying Tuesday that Trump's actions led to “death and destruction in the most sacred space in our republic.”

Also voting with the Democrats were Republican Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Peter Meijer of Michigan, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, David Valadao of California and Tom Rice of South Carolina.

The majority of House Republicans remained loyal to Trump, and they argued Wednesday impeachment would further incite the president's extremist supporters. Trump, ensconsed at the White House and watching the proceedings TV, issued a statement urging "NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind" to disrupt Biden's ascension to the White House. But he took no responsibility for the siege that resulted in five deaths — including the beating death of a Capitol Police officer, multiple arrests and a sprawling FBI investigation.

A nervous nation watched history as it unfolded in the House, where representatives voting to impeach Trump said they were further pushed to urgency by intelligence briefings suggesting extremists loyal to Trump are threatening Biden's inauguration next week.

Trump did not acknowledge his second impeachment in a video statement released early Wednesday evening, but in a dramatic shift called on his supporters to remain peaceful amid concerns about additional violence before Biden is sworn in.

“I want to be very clear: I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week,” he said, adding that “like all of you I was shocked and deeply saddened by the calamity” and that “no true supporter” of his “could ever endorse political violence.”

Some 20,000 National Guard troops — more than are deployed to Afghanistan — have been deployed to protect America's dome of democracy, and the FBI has warned armed protests are likely at some or all of the 50 statehouses around the country ahead of Inauguration Day.

• Read more from Patch editors on efforts to fortify statehouses across America and prepare for violence: Arizona | Colorado | Illinois | Michigan | Minnesota | Ohio | Washington

Trump also said that he had directed federal agencies “to use all necessary resources to maintain order in Washington, D.C.” over the next week.

In the face of the accusations against him and with the FBI warning of more violence, Trump erlier said, “That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers.”

Intelligence shows as many as 10,000 Trump supporters have active plans to form a perimeter around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court as Biden takes the oath. Chatter about continued violence that surfaced on an encrypted communications app Telegram also includes an assassination plot, according to intelligence reports.

• Read more: Will Inauguration Day Bring More Insurrection? 5 Things To Know

The FBI was alerted by a group that monitors the Dubai-based messaging service Telegraph when chatter increased about extremist protests that could escalate into violence before, on and after Inauguration Day. Information shared on the app included instructions on making, concealing and using homemade guns and bombs, NBC News reported.

Content on white supremacy has been freely shared for months on the app, NBC reported, but chatter picked up significantly after the Capitol siege.

Chris Sampson, chief of research at the Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies, a defense research institute, said his group monitors the channel and alerted the FBI.

“When they start calling for assassinations, when they start calling for action versus sharing information, we flag them a little higher," Sampson said.

Trump Will Serve Out His Term

Regardless of the vote to impeach the 45th president, who has spent four years bending Washington to his will, Trump will be allowed to finish out his term.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked a quick impeachment trial in the Senate, saying "there is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial" could end in the week remaining before Biden is sworn in. Instead, he will let New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who will become the Senate majority leader when Democrats gain control of the chamber on Jan. 19, manage the trial.

McConnell said Wednesday he hasn’t decided how he will vote in a Senate trial. “While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote, and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” he said in a statement.

McConnell is furious with Trump for his continued false claims of a stolen election and has called Trump loyalists who stormed the Capitol “unhinged.” But for him to vote to convict Trump would be an extraordinary turn for the Republican leader who has spent the last four years defending and protecting the president.

Associates of McConnell told The New York Times the Kentucky Republican believes Trump committed impeachable offenses and is pleased the Democrats moved to impeach him on a single charge of “incitement of insurrection.” The Times story said McConnell believes impeachment is the best way to purge Trumpism from the Republican Party.

If the 50 Senate Democrats and independents caucusing with them vote to convict Trump, 17 Republicans would have to break from their party. McConnell’s increasingly chilly view of Trump could make it easier for Republicans to turn against him, but Trump's remarks Wednesday condemning the violence could increase his chances of surviving a Senate trial.

A vote in the Senate to convict Trump of the charges would give the chamber the option under the Constitution to forbid him from seeking federal office again and strip him of perks afforded former presidents.

Cheney, the Wyoming representative who is the daughter for former Vice President Dick Cheney, said the case against Trump was clear.

"There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," Cheney said in a statement Tuesday.

In his Jan. 6 address to tens of thousands of his supporters, some of whom split off to break into the Capitol, Trump singled out Cheney, saying, "We got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world.”

“There is no question that the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob,” Cheney told Fox News as she sheltered in a secure location inside the Capitol. "He lit the flame."

Who Knew What When?

The deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by Trump extremists wasn’t a spontaneous show of support for the defeated president, according to an FBI bulletin circulated internally the day before warning that extremists were planning to travel to the nation’s capital, attack Congress and engage in “war.”

The bulletin directly contradicts previous reports by the Justice Department and FBI, both of which claimed intelligence did not show any looming threats of violence as a joint session of Congress met in what is typically a routine proceeding in the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next.

The Washington Post, which obtained the bulletin issued internally by the FBI’s field office in Norfolk, Virginia, said it described the sharing of maps of the Capitol’s tunnels, discussed rallying points to meet up to travel to Washington and called for violence, including an online thread that urged the defeated president’s supporters to “be ready to fight.”

“Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled,” the thread continued, making references to the Black Lives Matter movement and using a slur to describe antifa, a loosely organized movement denouncing racism and fascism.

“Get violent,” supporters were prodded in the thread, according to the FBI memo. “Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

Steven Sund, the departing chief of the Capitol Police force, told The Washington Post he made six requests for backup before and during the attack on the Capitol and repeatedly asked the sergeants at arms of the House and Senate for permission to request help from the National Guard.

In an afternoon call with Pentagon officials, Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, the director of the Army staff, agreed to deploy the military but said he didn’t “like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background.”

Military troops weren’t deployed until after 3 p.m. and didn’t arrive at the Capitol until about 5:40 p.m. By that time, the violence had mostly ended.

Many of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were armed as if in preparation for war. Five people died in the violence — a Capitol Police officer who was fatally injured by the rioters, a protester who was shot by police, and three others who died as a result of what D.C. police called "medical emergencies."

“Hang Mike Pence!” chanted some of the rioters, unhappy with the vice president after he said he lacked the constitutional authority to do as Trump asked and set aside the election results.

Lawmakers briefed by the FBI about last week’s Capitol siege said they are gravely concerned about the threat of further violence. Five Democrats heading House subcommittees said in a statement that “it is clear that more must be done to preempt, penetrate and prevent deadly and seditious assaults by domestic violent extremists in the days to come.”

The FBI said its investigation into the insurrection is unprecedented, so far including 170 open cases that could result in sedition, felony murder and conspiracy charges against hundreds of persons. The lawmakers briefed on what was known ahead of the attack said they were assured by the FBI that “every individual associated with this act” — both those who made it inside the Capitol and those who entered restricted areas outside — will be prosecuted.

Dozens of people have already been charged in the deadly Capitol riot, but U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said Tuesday “this is only the beginning” of a sweeping probe to bring to justice those attempting to overthrow or defeat the government.

“We’re going to focus on the most significant charges as a deterrent because, regardless if it was just a trespass in the Capitol or if someone planted a pipe bomb, you will be charged and you will be found,” he said.

The Justice Department has created a specialized strike force to examine the possibility of sedition charges. Officials said they were using some of the same techniques in the riot probe as they use in international counterterrorism investigations, examining the money flow and movement of defendants leading up to the breach.

Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, told reporters Tuesday the assault on the Capitol was “domestic terrorism” and those involved should be prosecuted to the full extent of federal law. He also said participants should also be placed on the federal no-fly list as “insurrectionists.”

The outgoing 45th president made his first public remarks after the Capitol siege Tuesday as he left on a defiantly symbolic trip to a Texas border town — the Alamo — named after the 13-day siege at a San Antonio mission where a small group of Texan independence fighters fended off Mexican forces.

Trump took no responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, instead blaming congressional Democrats seeking his early removal from office for causing unrest.

“It’s causing tremendous danger to our country,” Trump said, “and it’s causing tremendous anger.”

Trump, who did not take questions, said remarks he made at a rally Jan. 6 — cited in the four-page impeachment bill the House is expected to vote on Wednesday — were “totally appropriate” and did not incite those who split off from the crowd of tens of thousands of supporters to storm the Capitol.

Speaking for more than an hour, Trump urged his supporters at the rally to “march peacefully” to the Capitol, but also encouraged them to “fight like hell.” He also suggested Republican lawmakers who hadn’t committed to contesting the Electoral College votes that made Biden the 2020 presidential election winner would need “more courage to step up.” Trump also said he would join the protesters in their march, though he then returned to the White House.

Even as he maintained Tuesday he wants “absolutely no violence,” Trump warned those pushing for his removal to “be careful what you wish for.”

“The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me, but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration,” he said.

The House had asked Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to invoke their constitutional authority under the 25th Amendment and declare him unfit to finish out his term. But Pence sent a letter to Pelosi on Tuesday evening saying that so removing the president from office is not in the best interests of the country.

Schumer labeled Trump's comments "a pathological technique ... used by the worst dictators the globe as ever seen,” and said Trump "should not hold office one day longer."

Related from Patch editors:

• Trolls Wrongly Accused Retired Firefighter Of Capitol Riot Murder
• How A Meme Helped Feds Link BK Judge's Son To Capitol Siege
• Florist Who Bragged Of Breaking Into Pelosi's Office Charged
• Man Wearing 'Camp Auschwitz' Sweatshirt Appears In Court
• Who’s Been Charged So Far By The Feds In Deadly Capitol Riot
• Chicago Heights Man Threatens To Kill Dems At Inauguration: Feds
• Arizona’s ‘QAnon Shaman’ Appears In Court
• Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Man Arrested For Being Part Of Capitol Riot
• Armed Pro-Trump Protesters Gather Outside Texas Capitol
• Washington Congresswoman Positive For COVID-19 After Capitol Lockdown
• 2 Arrested During Protest On Washington’s Capitol
• Schumer Calls Trump’s Denial Of Responsibility ‘Pathological’

Related from The Associated Press:

• Trump Takes No Responsibility For Riots In Visit To Texas
• Tech Giants Banished Trump; Now Things Get Interesting
• House Will Try To Force Donald Trump From Office Following Riots
• Business Grows Skittish About Trump And GOP After Riots
• After A Frosty Few Days, Pence And Trump Appear To Reach Détente

The Associated Press contributed reporting. This is a developing story. Stay on Patch and refresh your browser for the latest news.