US Capitol riots: Trump grudgingly concedes; Democrats threaten impeachment

US President Trump’s administration plunged deeper into crisis as more officials resigned in protest, prominent Republicans broke with him and Democratic congressional leaders threatened to impeach him for encouraging a mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.

 

What was already shaping up as a volatile final stretch to the Trump presidency took on an air of national emergency as the White House emptied out and some Republicans joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a cascade of Democrats calling for Trump to be removed from office without waiting the 13 days until the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R Biden Jr.

 

The prospect of Trump’s tenure in its last days appeared remote. Despite a rupture with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence privately ruled out invoking the disability clause of the 25th Amendment to sideline the president, as many had urged that he and the cabinet do, according to officials. Democrats suggested they could move quickly to impeachment, a step that would have its own logistical and political challenges. Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the assistant speaker of the House, said Friday on CNN that the Democrats could get an impeachment vote to the House floor as early as the middle of next week.

 

Ending a day of public silence, Trump posted a 2½-minute video on Twitter on Thursday evening denouncing the mob attack in a way that he had refused to do a day earlier. Reading dutifully from a script prepared by his staff, he declared himself “outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem” and told those who broke the law that “you will pay.”

 

While he did not give up his false claims of election fraud, he finally conceded defeat. “A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20,” Trump acknowledged.