Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, just over a year ago, I stood on the House floor as we did our jobs and voted to impeach the President of the United States. The facts were clear then: Donald Trump abused the power of the Office of the Presidency to pursue his own personal, political gain. My vote was a vote for the Constitution and for `We, the People' because America is so deeply worth it.

Six months later, we saw Donald Trump's radically disparate treatment of a violent mob taking over the Michigan state capitol while threatening to lynch a governor and the harsh crackdown on Black, Indigenous, and people of color demonstrating for civil and human rights in the wake of yet another Black person being murdered by law enforcement. On the one hand, we saw armed white men with swastikas and Confederate flags threatening lawmakers, damaging the statehouse, and seeking to lynch, shoot, and behead the Governor of Michigan with no federal response. In fact, Attorney General Bill Barr told me under oath that he wasn't even aware it occurred. In sharp contrast, we saw Black people and people of color forcibly removed by armed federal officials using pepper bombs and tear gas. This time, the Attorney General was on the scene himself.

All of these events brought us to January 6, 2021. On that day, I was trapped in the House gallery for nearly two hours as a mob of insurrectionists launched a deadly attack on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy. My colleagues and I took cover as domestic terrorists waved the confederate flag in the People's House; as the temple of our democracy was ransacked in the most deadly and destructive assault on the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812. The events of January 6 were horrific. We know now that January 6 could have ended in even more violence, harm, and loss of life. We know the mob came ready for combat with nooses, zip ties, bats, bulletproof vests, and pipes. We know they came within seconds of breaching the United States Senate and ran around the inside of this building chanting ``Hang Mike Pence'' and looking for our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. And we know that they had placed bombs at the Capitol, the Democratic National Committee, and the Republican National Committee.

Why did they do all of this? Because for months, the man who sits in the White House has refused to accept the will of the American people; has refused to recognize that he lost a free and fair election-- decisively. And then he--and some Republican members of this Congress-- called on his followers to ``be wild.'' They told them to ``stand by.'' Then, they told them to ``fight like hell.'' Next, they proclaimed ``we are going to the Capitol.'' The insurrectionists followed those orders from the President of the United States. They went to the Capitol and fought like hell. They tried to subvert our democracy, but they failed.

Donald Trump is the smoking gun. That gun is reloaded and whether or not it goes off once more is up to us. We must send a clear message to the President that the United States Congress will not stand by and allow one man to turn our democracy into an autocracy; will not stand by while that man incites insurrectionists to launch a deadly assault on the United States Capitol.

I call on my colleagues to join me in voting to immediately impeach, convict, and remove Donald J. Trump from office; to ensure he can never run for elected office again; to fight for justice; to send a signal to those across America and throughout the world who--incited and fueled by this president--want to do us further harm; and to hold him fully accountable for this attack on Congress, the United States of America, and our democracy.

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