House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, leads the second impeachment vote against lame duck president Donald Trump for his role in inciting a violent insurrection to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6: Video Screen shot

By Glynn Wilson –

House Speaker Nanci Pelosi didn’t waste any time in pursing a second article of impeachment against lame duck president Donald Trump after coming very close to being assassinated in the United State Capitol building last Wednesday by an armed and dangerous insurrectionist militia ordered to storm up Capitol Hill by a selfish, angry, deranged and vengeful commander-in-chief.

Still intellectually incapable of understanding that he was defeated at the polls by a majority of the American people, spurred on by a conspiracy theory of a prophecy predicting that god himself would intervene to make him president still for four more years, Trump called up an army of hicks and misfits who nearly accomplished a takeover of the duly elected democratic government.

Emerging from under a table in the bowels of the Capitol, Pelosi was shaking not only in fear. She was pissed off, and immediately ordered the resignation of Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and called for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office.

A preliminary press investigation showed that while some Capitol Police officers did their jobs by protecting members of Congress from right-wing domestic terrorists hell bent on insurrection and assassination, and fighting to protect some entrances to the historic building, others were complicit in allowing the mob onto the Capitol steps and to ultimately breach the citadel of American Democracy.

House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger, supervisors to Chief Sund, also stepped down and ran and hid, refusing to make statements or answer questions from reporters, after it was revealed that they were also in on the law enforcement and intelligence failure along with Trump’s unconfirmed acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller.

New on the job, loyal only to Trump, Miller refused requests from the mayor of D.C. and the Capitol Police Chief to position more troops around the Capitol before the insurrection rally, which everyone should have known was coming. It was all over social media, and even the F.B.I. warned of trouble in the advance. And he refused to order the deployment of National Guard troops to come to the rescue of Capitol Police and D.C. Metro Police, even after the Capitol was breached, claiming he was worried about “optics.”

The second impeachment of Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors and incitement of insurrection came one week to the day after the attempted coup. The House quickly and decisively voted 232 to 197 to charge Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” and requesting his immediate removal from office and disqualification from ever holding public office again.

Arguing for the vote, Pelosi implored her colleagues to embrace “a constitutional remedy that will ensure that the Republic will be safe from this man who is so resolutely determined to tear down the things that we hold dear and that hold us together.”

“He must go,” she said. “He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.”

Trump will go down in history as the only president to be impeached twice.

To their late credit, 10 Republicans finally defected from fealty to Trump and joined Democrats in the vote, including Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the party’s No. 3 leader in the House; Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington; John Katko of New York; Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; Fred Upton of Michigan; Dan Newhouse of Washington; Peter Meijer of Michigan; Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio; David Valadao of California; and Tom Rice of South Carolina.

President-elect Joe Biden also called for holding the president and the rioters accountable and applauded the vote in the House.

“It was a bipartisan vote cast by members who followed the Constitution and their conscience,” he said in a statement on Wednesday night.

The vote set the stage for the second Senate trial for Trump, although it won’t happen until he is gone from the White House and Biden is sworn in Jan. 20.

Even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, was said to support the trial as a means of purging his party of Trump. This sets up a political and constitutional showdown “that could shape the course of American politics when the nation remains dangerously divided,” according to The New York Times.

Even as he faced growing pressure to simply resign for his role in inciting violence against the U.S. government, Trump showed no contrition.

Prior to the vote, and banned from Twitter and Facebook, Trump did put out a bland video statement urging his supporters to remain peaceful, while federal authorities warned of a nationwide wave of violence surrounding Biden’s inauguration based on widespread continuing threats all over social media. Facebook took the extraordinary step of banning much in the way of threats of violence from its platform, while Amazon and Apple managed to get the newer, right-wing app Parler wiped from the web.

Democrats and some Republicans tried briefly to take a course short of impeachment, some urging Trump to resign voluntarily. The House voted late Tuesday to call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the powers of the presidency from Trump for the remainder of his term.

Trump predictably refused to go, and Pence declined to lead an effort to take his presidential powers away.