The United States Congress approves the second impeachment against Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.REUTERS

The era of Donald Trump ends with the fourth

impeachment

in American history.

Congress has voted this Wednesday in favor of trying the Republican president for a crime of "incitement to insurrection" after the violent assault on the Capitol by some ultras harangued by himself.

Trump becomes the first president to undergo this procedure twice, but, unlike the trial for the Ukraine scandal, this case has gained support among Republicans.

Ten Republicans have joined the 222 Democrats in the vote.

The other 197 have voted against.

The day the world saw the temple of American democracy attacked by a mob has shaken Abraham Lincoln's party, unleashed a national crisis.

The Capitol looked like a noble building taken over by the Army in a time of war.

An imposing deployment of the National Guard guarded the wide security perimeter around the complex that houses the Lower House and the Senate, surrounded by high iron fences.

Inside, hundreds of soldiers slept on the marble floors, rested from their shifts leaning on the statues, ate or chatted among themselves through the illustrious rotunda at the entrance, through all the corridors and lobbies.

Others patrolled the labyrinthine facilities.

Just a week ago, on January 6, a fateful chapter had been written about the memory of that place.

Hordes of Trump supporters had burst in with disconcerting ease to boycott the certification of Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election.

Hours before, the president had encouraged them to march to the place and "fight like a demon" against an election that he dismissed, baseless, as "stolen."

Five people were killed, including a beaten police officer.

The session of the Chambers was suspended and resumed at night.

Early in the morning, Biden was confirmed as president-elect.

Never in its recent history has the United States seen the specter of a coup so close.

"We know that we have suffered an insurrection that violated the sanctity of the Capitol of the people and that tried to reverse the will duly registered by the American people," said the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the veteran Democrat Nancy Pelosi, this Wednesday at the beginning of the debate on

impeachment

in the plenary hall.

“And we know,” he continued, “that the president of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion against our country.

You must leave.

It is a clear danger to the country we all love. "

Pelosi, the nation's third-largest authority, cited an 1862 speech by Abraham Lincoln to call on legislators, Democrats and Republicans, to do their "duty of the patriotic in the hour of a decisive crisis for the American people."

“Comrades in Congress, compatriots, we cannot escape history.

Let us do our duty and with our oath and honor the trust of our nation ”, he emphasized.

The Republican Party, made a bloc in support of Trump in the

impeachment

of a year ago, has entered a phase of guerrilla warfare after the assault on Congress.

Congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the third-largest Republican in the House of Representatives, announced the night before that she would vote in favor of trying Trump.

In a harsh statement, Cheney concluded that "there has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States."

At the opposite pole of the party, Jim Jordan, was used during the debate in a fiery defense of the outgoing president, assuring that everything responded to an "obsession" to throw Trump out from his first day.

But that wasn't the general feeling either.

Although most Republicans voted against

impeachment

, few stood up for the New York mogul enthusiastically.

The position of the leader of the Republican minority in the House, the Californian Kevin McCarthy, was significant. He admitted that Trump "is to blame" for what happened, but considered it more appropriate to react with a "vote of no confidence" to the president and the creation of a commission of inquiry, to promote a political trial in Congress "in such a short time", without having carried out investigations and prior hearings.

Trump will step down as president in a week, on January 20, when Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris take office.

Everything that surrounds this impeachment is exceptional, in itself, an extraordinary mechanism.

The phase in the House of Representatives has proceeded to vote only one week after the events, without articulating a prior investigation, appearances or witnesses through.

What in the impeachment of a year ago, as a result of the Ukraine scandal, took about three months, this time has been resolved in a few days, largely because the faults attributed to the president have been committed this time in the eyes of the world, in a long list of messages posted on Twitter or in speeches recorded and broadcast live.

Now the president is formally charged, but it is not clear when Pelosi will move the case to the Senate, where the trial itself is held and the verdict is voted.

While the upper house, now in recess, does not resume sessions, it is certain that the process will take place with Trump already out of the White House.

In addition, the Democrats themselves are considering postponing it for weeks, even months, so that the new Biden Administration can get going without restrictions, since a Senate overwhelmed by this trial would have difficulty even confirming the new positions of the Democratic Government.

In the Senate, the guilty verdict will not be easy despite the national upheaval, as it requires two-thirds of the senators.

Democrats and Republicans are tied for seats (50-50) and Democrats would need the votes of up to 17 members of Trump's party.

Its leader in this House, Senator Mitch McConnell, has not spoken publicly, but has expressed his satisfaction with the process as an opportunity to purge the party from Trump's shadow, according to sources in his immediate surroundings cited by

The New York Times

.

This position of who was Trump's retaining wall before the Democrats in the Ukraine trial accounts for the new scenario that opened in the United States on January 6.

According to McConnell advisers, up to a dozen senators could vote to convict him.

If found guilty, the senators could immediately vote to disqualify Trump from any other public office, which would liquidate any intention to run again in 2024, as he has hinted so far.

The United States is thus heading towards its fourth

impeachment,

an extraordinary mechanism that the fathers of the Constitution designed to be able to convict and remove a president in case of “treason, bribery, crimes or serious misdemeanors.

The first went to Democratic President Andrew Johnson (1868);

the second, also Democrat Bill Clinton, in 1998, and the third, Trump himself, at the beginning of 2020 for his maneuvers with the Kiev government to get dirty laundry from the Bidens [Trump asked the president of that country to announce investigations about his son and other Democrats].

It is a direct assault on democracy that will now be judged in Washington.

Trump had for years fueled doubts about the credibility of the US electoral system, but losing re-election to Biden on November 3, he began a dangerous flight forward spreading an arsenal of baseless accusations of electoral fraud - all brought down by the courts -, pressing to the officials responsible for the key territories it lost and inciting its bases against what it described as "theft."

On the same morning, January 6, he reached ecstasy, launching harangues such as: "After this, we are going to walk down to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen."

"We are not going to encourage some of them much because you will never recover your country with weakness, you have to show strength and be strong," he insisted.

Now, the climate of mistrust in the United States is such that General Mark Milley and the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement on Tuesday to stress that the Army will protect the United States Constitution "against any enemy within" and that Joe Biden will be the Commander-in-Chief effective January 20.

Meanwhile, Trump, isolated by most of

the

Republican

establishment

during his last days in the White House, addressed his followers this Wednesday through a statement in which he pleaded: "Given the information about new demonstrations, I urge you not to there is NO violence, NO law breaking and NO vandalism ”.

It is late, the president who played with matches says goodbye on trial again.

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