U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu, who represents California’s 33rd congressional district, announced that he, along with representatives from two other states, had drafted Articles of Impeachment for President Trump.
The articles, drafted by Lieu, Rhode Island Representative David Cicilline and Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, assert that the president “incite[d] … insurrection,” referring to the mob of his supporters who broke into the Capitol building on Wednesday, Jan. 6.
Those articles had more than 150 co-sponsors as of mid-day on Friday, Jan. 8, according to a social media post from the congressman.
Lieu wrote online that the president had “incited a mob to attack Congress to stop the acceptance of Electoral College results.”
“The coup attempt resulted in multiple deaths,” he continued, referring to the five fatalities linked to the Capitol chaos. Some of those deaths included that of 35-year-old San Diego woman Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by police inside the U.S. Capitol building as she tried to break through the House chamber’s doors, according to multiple sources, and policeman Brian Sicknick, who died Thursday evening from injuries sustained “while physically engaging” with pro-Trump rioters, according to a statement from Capitol Police.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” Lieu wrote in his Tweet. He followed up in another Tweet saying that “sternly worded press releases don’t count as action.”
Lieu confirmed online that he and Cicilline began drafting the articles of impeachment while in lockdown together in Cicilline’s office for horus as the Capitol was overrun by pro-Trump rioters.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that if the President Trump does not “immediately resign,” she had instructed the Rules Committee to be “prepared to move forward with … [the] motion for impeachment.”
CNN reported that an impeachment vote would likely happen “by the middle of next week.”
Update: On Jan. 10, Lieu wrote an op/ed for the LA Times describing why he believed Trump should again be impeached.