Mike Pence has NOT ruled out using the 25th Amendment

Mike Pence has not ruled out using the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump from office in the wake of Wednesday’s riot on the US Capitol that left five dead, according to a source.    

Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Pence Thursday to declare Trump unfit for office after he riled up crowds telling them to ‘fight’ moments before a mob stormed the Capitol.

The Vice President refused to take their calls and he has not spoken publicly since Wednesday’s events, leading the Democrats to begin an impeachment process as an alternative option to remove Trump from office. 

But an insider told CNN that – despite Pence’s silence – the Vice President is keeping the move to invoke the 25th Amendment very much on the table for if or when Trump becomes more unstable in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.     

The latest twist in this week’s events comes as it was revealed Pence sheltered in a bunker with his family during the Capitol riot and Trump didn’t check in on his safety.  

The source said Pence’s team is concerned the president could take action that would risk national security if either the Vice President pursues the 25th Amendment or Democrats push forward with their impeachment plans. 

Now, Pence is working to ensure there is a smooth transition to the Biden administration and that the incoming team are best prepared for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, CNN reported. 

Tensions have reached a head between the president and his second in command following Wednesday’s riot where Trump’s supporters broke into the Capitol and chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’. 

Despite stoking the fury among the crowd by falsely telling them Pence had the power to stop the certification of Biden’s victory, Trump did not check in on the Vice President during the siege.

‘Was he concerned at all that an angry mob that he commanded to march on the Capitol might injure the vice president or his family?’ a source said to CNN. 

Pence, his wife Karen Pence, daughter Charlotte and brother Rep. Greg Pence were forced to take cover in a secret location. 

The VP and his family – who had joined him for the ceremony – are said to have been able to hear the angry mob shouting ‘where’s Mike Pence’ while they stormed through the building.  

The two men have not spoken since the violent attack on Capitol Hill, CNN reported.  

Trump has also not condemned the threats made against his second in command by his supporters and has gone to efforts to freeze him out including revoking the Vice President Chief of Staff Marc Short’s White House access Wednesday.

Pence has finally seen ‘a glimpse of POTUS’s vindictiveness’ and is disappointed and saddened by it, a source told CNN.

After his numerous attempts to overthrow the presidential election through unfounded claims of mass voter fraud failed, Trump pushed the blame for his defeat onto Pence. 

The president repeatedly and incorrectly claimed the Vice President could put a stop to the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. 

‘States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval,’ Trump wrote on Wednesday morning, just hours before his supporters tried to hunt Pence down.

‘All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!’

‘If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency,’ he added. 

‘Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!’

He continued to falsely claim that Pence simply lacked the ‘courage’ as he whipped up the crowds at his ‘Stop the Steal’ rally into a frenzy Wednesday and urged them ‘to fight’. 

‘Mike Pence, I hope you get to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country, and if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you,’ Trump said at the rally. 

Pence in fact did not have the power to do this – something he made clear in a statement Wednesday and in a conversation with Trump Tuesday. 

‘Some believe that as Vice President, I should be able to accept or reject electoral votes unilaterally,’ Pence’s statement read.

‘Others believe that electoral votes should never be challenged in a Joint Session of Congress,’ he continued.

‘After a careful study of our Constitution, our laws, and our history, I believe neither view is correct.’  

This marked the first time Pence publicly broke rank with Trump and reportedly outraged Trump.  

The 25th Amendment, which also governs a president who voluntarily relinquishes power on a temporary basis, requires that 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’ inform the Congress that the president is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.’ 

It is a provision never before used for the removal of a president against his will.  

It requires Pence and a majority of the Cabinet to vote to remove Trump from office due to his inability to ‘discharge the powers and duties of his office’. 

Even if Pence and half the cabinet agrees, the 25th Amendment move requires a two-thirds majority of both chambers if the president objects. 

Several cabinet members are on an acting basis, lowering the number who could agree to the move. 

Pelosi and Schumer, the two top Democrats, had called on Pence to invoke the Amendment this week. 

Schumer revealed their efforts were scuppered when they were put on hold for 25 minutes before being told Pence would not come to the phone. 

House Democrats will introduce their impeachment resolution on Monday charging Trump with ‘incitement of insurrection’. 

House Rep. Ted Lieu of California announced on his Twitter feed Saturday that 180 members of Congress have signed as co-sponsors of the article of impeachment that he helped draft alongside fellow House Reps. Jamie Raskin and David Cicilline.  

Lieu said that while all 180 co-sponsors are Democrats, he is confident that Republican members of the House will support to impeach. 

A draft of the article prepared by Cicilline, Lieu, and Raskin states that, ‘Incited by Trump, a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol,’ injured law enforcement, menaced lawmakers and the vice president, and interfered with the count of the Electoral College.    

Some Republicans have already suggested they are open to impeachment.

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who voted to acquit Trump last year, said he will ‘definitely consider’ impeachment.

And Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who also voted to acquit, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that she wants Trump to resign. 

Senator Pat Toomey told Fox News Saturday he believes Trump committed ‘impeachable offenses’. 

Two Republican Congress members told CNN they would support impeachment with one saying ‘I think you will have GOP members vote for impeachment.’ 

However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the earliest a second trial would begin is Inauguration Day because the Senate is in recess until January 19. 

The move to impeach a sitting president for a second time is an unprecedented event in American history. 

Trump’s initial impeachment trial came after it emerged that he had pressured the Ukrainian president for information on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

He was impeached in December 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress but was acquitted by the Senate in February after only one Republican – Mitt Romney – broke from party lines to back the impeachment article.  

The move to remove Trump from power comes in the wake of Wednesday’s riot at the US Capitol.

Trump is accused of inciting violence among his supporters telling them to ‘fight’ in a rally moments before the riot erupted. 

His response once the violence started has also said to have shocked White House aides. 

He stayed quiet for hours as rioters wreaked chaos on the Capitol and five died, reportedly watching the scenes unfold on TV and refusing to tell his fans to exit the building.

He finally addressed the nation Wednesday several hours later – after Biden condemned the violence in a public address – where he told his supporters ‘I love you’ but ‘go home’. 

It has also emerged that Trump resisted efforts to deploy the National Guard and White House officials had to intervene to make it happen, with Pence giving officials the go-ahead from where he was hiding out. 

Trump supporters broke through the barricades around the Capitol Wednesday and entered the seat of government sending lawmakers fleeing for their lives. 

Protesters were riled up by the president during a rally near the White House where he told them to head to Capitol Hill where lawmakers were scheduled to confirm Joe Biden’s presidential victory.   

Trump told the crowd to ‘fight’: ‘Unbelievable, what we have to go through. What we have to go through – and you have to get your people to fight.’ 

A violent mob then stormed the Capitol, breaking through police barricades and smashing windows to enter the building.

Lawmakers were forced to go into hiding for several hours as Capitol police grappled to take back control while the mob defecated in the Senate and House, invaded Nancy Pelosi’s office and looted items potentially including state secrets.   

Five people were killed in the violent riot including a police officer who was reportedly hit over the head with a fire extinguisher by a rioter. 

Three top Capitol security officials have stood down as questions are being raised over the failure to stop the breach occurring in the first place.   

Dozens have been rounded up and arrested since the attack including a QAnon supporter, a 70-year-old who brought two handguns, a rifle and 11 Molotov cocktails to the riot and a newly sworn-in West Virginia delegate.

The FBI is asking for the public’s help in bringing all those responsible to justice. 

Meanwhile, House Democrats will start proceedings to impeach Trump Monday charging him with ‘incitement of insurrection’ after he egged on his supporters and then failed to condemn the violence or tell them to leave the Capitol for hours after the violence erupted. 

Twitter banned the president from its platform Friday saying in a statement that his recent tweets amounted to glorification of violence.