President Donald Trump’s impeachment firewall has begun to crack.
A day before the House is set to charge Trump with ‘willful incitement of insurrection’ — the gravest allegation ever lodged against a sitting president — fissures in the Republican Party threatened to transform the vote into a resounding bipartisan rebuke.
Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, punctuated the defections Tuesday night with a statement announcing her support for impeachment and accusing Trump of being singularly responsible for the mob that led a deadly and destructive march to the Capitol last week.
“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. “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.”
In another significant turn of events, the top two congressional Republicans — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — have privately signaled they too are furious and open to punishing Trump in some way for his role inciting the violence that led to five deaths, including one police officer.
McConnell has indicated Trump’s actions qualify him for removal from office, according to a source familiar with his thinking. McCarthy, perhaps Trump’s most loyal ally on the Hill, has privately said he remains opposed to impeachment but has asked GOP lawmakers whether he should pressure the president to resign, according to a Republican lawmaker.
Cheney’s move was quickly interpreted across Capitol Hill as a sign that more GOP lawmakers could break ranks and support impeachment — and potentially foreshadowed a splinter in a Republican Party that has become nearly solely defined by its fealty to Trump.
It also offers further evidence of the fury that’s been intensifying among lawmakers of both parties, who were in personal danger on Wednesday in the Capitol.
Cheney wasn’t alone Tuesday. Reps. John Katko of New York and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois also signaled their support for impeachment Tuesday afternoon. And several other Republicans have indicated they’re leaning toward joining with Democrats, according to GOP sources.
Democrats privately said the growing chorus of pro-impeachment GOP voices further solidified their case to remove Trump despite him having a week left in office — offering a vastly different portrait than the 2019 impeachment vote, when not a single Republican broke ranks with their party on the House floor.
“She’s a very conservative Republican, but she’s also a person of principle. And she’s a person of truth,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters Tuesday night. “She knows the president incited this violent activity by many, and I would hope there are a number of Republicans who vote for this.”
“Good for her to be honoring the oath of office,” added Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The House will move to impeach Trump on Wednesday, less than one week after he goaded on a mob of his supporters, urging them to march to the Capitol and stop the “rigged election” from being certified.
As many as a dozen Republicans are expected to support impeachment, according to lawmakers and aides of both parties. But it’s unclear how Cheney’s public endorsement will change the calculation for Republicans who have been privately dismayed, or even outright enraged, at the president.
Democrats’ push to force Trump out — first with a vote Tuesday evening calling on Vice President Mike Pence to take unilateral action and then the impeachment vote Wednesday — is barreling to the floor at unprecedented speed.
Trump himself has remained defiant even as a growing faction of his party has blamed him for Wednesday’s violence.
Speaking in Texas, Trump delivered an ominous warning that the Democratic effort to remove him would “come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration. As the expression goes, be careful what you wish for.”
But Trump’s failure to retreat from his attempt to overturn the election has only fueled the strife within the congressional GOP, which has been cleaved in half in the days since the president encouraged rioters to march on the Capitol.
Cheney’s support for impeachment is a sharp break from McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise — who both backed Trump’s effort to overturn the election on the floor last week. Republican leaders do not plan to whip their members to oppose Trump’s impeachment this time, in contrast with the GOP’s stance in 2019.
Although McCarthy remains opposed to impeachment, he has been scrambling behind the scenes about what to do next. He is open to censure, per a GOP aide, though Pelosi and other top Democrats have eschewed the idea, arguing that does little to hold Trump accountable for the attack. The House GOP leader has also been polling members about whether he should call on Trump to resign, according to one lawmaker.
McConnell (R-Ky.) has refrained from commenting publicly about the impeachment proceedings but the source familiar with his thinking expects him to discuss the matter with the Senate Republican conference. The New York Times first reported Tuesday that McConnell has told associates he believes the president committed impeachable offenses.
McConnell’s break from the president would be a significant move, with the GOP already being torn apart by internal strife in the days since the president encouraged rioters to break into the Capitol, temporarily halting certification of President-elect Joe Biden.
A spokesperson for McConnell did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Democrats’ effort to remove the president for an unprecedented second time has left some concerned on Capitol Hill about the potential divisiveness of the step. Lawmakers of both parties fear the impeachment vote will again inflame the pro-Trump mob who stormed the Capitol last week and terrorized lawmakers and staff and which resulted in dozens of injuries and five deaths, including a police officer.
But Democrats, including Pelosi, say they have no choice but to deliver a firm rebuke against Trump. Nearly every House Democrat has signed onto the effort to impeach.
Impeachment is the final step after Democrats sought a range of options to remove Trump, including a public pressure campaign for Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment — deeming the president unfit for office and removing him if a majority of the Cabinet or a commission appointed by Congress agrees.
Pence Tuesday night rejected the effort.
“I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation or consistent with the Constitution,” Pence said in a letter to Pelosi. “Last week I did not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games.”
With Pence showing no desire to remove Trump, the House is all but certain to impeach Trump Wednesday. The House Judiciary Committee, in an official pre-impeachment staff report released Tuesday evening, said impeachment was the last remaining tool in Congress’ arsenal.
“The House has taken every step short of impeachment to contain the danger. Now it is time to consider this last, grave, necessary step,” the panel wrote.
The Judiciary report also emphasized that it was urgent for Congress to impeach and remove Trump even with his term ending so soon. For one, the panel indicated, the Senate has the power to disqualify Trump from holding office in the future. And more importantly, they said, a president shouldn’t be immune from accountability simply because his term is almost done.
“This message must be sent even on the President’s last day in office,” the report reads.
The question then turns to the Senate and when it will begin a trial.
McConnell circulated a memo late last week saying the earliest a Senate trial would begin would be Jan. 19, the day before Biden’s inauguration. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the incoming majority leader, has looked into the unlikely option of reconvening the chamber earlier under emergency powers, but the move would require buy-in from McConnell.
Pelosi declined to comment on the potential timeline as she entered the Capitol Tuesday: “Take it one step at a time.”
Olivia Beavers, Melanie Zanona and Quint Forgey contributed to this report.