Whether Republican leaders of the Senate would then agree to hold a lightning-fast impeachment trial before the January 20 transition is another matter.
Democrats in the Congress have told the US President, Donald Trump, to step down or risk being impeached.
On Friday, Trump had put on a final, unrepentant display of division by announcing on Twitter that he would skip the inauguration of Joe Biden as president on January 20.
In a recent development, the top Democrat in Congress who doubles as the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced she had discussed with the military how to block the “unhinged” leader from the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
She warned that Democrats will launch impeachment proceedings unless Trump leaves willingly, or Vice President Mike Pence invokes the 25th Amendment, where the cabinet removes the president.
“If the President does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action,” Pelosi wrote.
She also revealed that she had spoken with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley about “preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.”
“The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy,” Pelosi wrote.
Democrats in the House of Representatives, who already impeached Trump in a traumatic, partisan vote in 2019, said the unprecedented second impeachment of the president could be ready next week.
Whether Republican leaders of the Senate would then agree to hold a lightning-fast impeachment trial before the January 20 transition is another matter.