NEW DELHI: Majority Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing through what is seen as a largely unworkable ultimatum to Vice President Mike Pence, demanding he invoke the 25th amendment to remove President Donald Trump from office. This is a curtain-raiser to an expected vote to impeach the President for the second time in just over a year. “If a majority or at least a fair number of Republicans, who are still not on board and are on Trump’s team, do not agree to the Democrats resolution for impeachment, then it’s very likely that removal or impeachment may not actually happen,” says academic and author Dr Ayesha Ray. “The House of Representatives would have to pass the impeachment motion by simple majority but the Senate would have to approve by a two thirds majority (of those seated),” she added. If all 100 senators were seated at the time of trial, 17 Republicans would have to join Democrats to obtain a conviction. Separately, the Associate Professor at King’s College, Pennsylvania’s Department of Political Science pointed to constitutional experts and American media reports saying “an additional vote will be required in the Senate” to bar Trump from running for President or any other political office again.
Though Dr Ray accepted there “is a very tight window (till Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20) to remove or impeach Trump,” she said, “this is a President who has aided and abetted an insurrection against the United States, a direct assault on American democracy. His followers used the speech he gave at the rally outside the Capitol and followed up by launching the violent attack and invading the building. That’s nothing short of an insurrection and a domestic terrorist attack.”
Speaking to StratNews Global Associate Editor Amitabh P. Revi, Dr Ray also explained groups like the Boogaloo Bois, Proud Boys and QAnon as “a patchwork of far right, white supremacist, militant, extremist groups and conspiracy theorists harking back to the days of the Ku Klux Klan,” though she is pointed out, “obviously, not every Trump supporter is a part of them.” But, Dr Ray also warned of a “FBI report of armed group militias who are preparing to launch simultaneous attacks on the state capitols between the 16th and 20th (of January). The report says there could be a rebellion, a much larger uprising, if it’s all coordinated and if there are multiple attacks. And so right now, they have to focus on preventing that.”
