January 7, 2021

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called for Vice President Mike Pence to immediately initiate the removal of President Donald Trump, declaring him a seditious threat to the country who can’t be trusted to finish even the last two weeks of his term.

Pelosi’s extraordinary statement, a day after Trump-inspired mobs ransacked the Capitol, lends significant weight to a mounting Democratic effort to oust Trump, either by impeaching him for the second time or pressuring Pence and Cabinet officials to invoke the 25th Amendment process.

“This is urgent, this is an emergency of the highest magnitude,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol, one day after Trump’s supporters stormed the complex in a deadly riot and spurred dozens of Democrats — and a tiny number of Republicans — to call for Trump’s removal. “Yesterday the president of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America.”

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