United States Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI-08) discussed her experience during the attack on the U.S. Capitol last week and said she is in favor of invoking the 25th amendment and impeaching President Donald Trump during a tele-town hall meeting on Tuesday evening.
US Rep. Elissa Slotkin supports invoking 25th Amendment
Many congressional members urged Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment following the attack on the Capitol. Congress could vote on legislation as soon as Tuesday night to invoke the 25th Amendment, in which Slotkin would vote yes. Impeachment proceedings are expected to begin Wednesday afternoon. According to Section Four of the 25th Amendment:
“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
This means that if the vice president and the president’s Cabinet members or Congress feels that the president is no longer able to fulfill their duties, then the vice president has the authority to assume the duties of the president.
“It was our hope … that Vice President Pence and the Cabinet take that initiative (to invoke the 25th amendment)," Slotkin said. “... We make the fair assumption that that’s not likely to happen, and so we are moving to impeachment 24 hours later."
While it is unclear if the Senate will convict the president or hold a trial, Slotkin believes that the vote to impeach will be bipartisan. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) have called for Trump to resign, but they have not expressly stated their support for impeachment.
With President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration a week away, there is debate over whether impeaching Trump is worthwhile at this time.
"We can't get beyond this point without some accountability,” Slotkin said. “I personally think that even though the timeline couldn’t be worse, it is important that the house that was attacked use the strongest measures available to us to say, ‘no we don’t accept this in our politics.’”
During last week's attack on the Capitol, Slotkin said that she and congressman Andy Levin (MI-09) took refuge in her office and were prepared to use chemical hoods because of the use of tear gas.
Although U.S. representatives from Michigan were prepared to defend the results of the 2020 presidential election, Michigan residents were among the mob in Washington, D.C. According to the Detroit Free Press, at least six people from Michigan were arrested for crimes related to the protests.
“Unfortunately, as I listened to the president’s speech as he addressed people in the protest and then certainly in the weeks prior, I believe that the president incited this," Slotkin said. "He encouraged people to come and said it would be wild."
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