The House of Representatives on Tuesday night passed a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove President Donald Trump from office for inciting a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol last week.
Pence said earlier Tuesday night that he would not invoke the 25th Amendment.
Were he to do so, however, Pence and a majority of the Cabinet would need to vote to remove the president due to his inability to “discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Three Cabinet officials have stepped down in the days following the attack.
The House on Monday also introduced an article of impeachment against Trump for “incitement of insurrection.”
Pro-Trump insurrectionists breached the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, after the president gave a speech encouraging supporters to march to Congress to prevent lawmakers from certifying his election loss to Joe Biden.
Trump released a video the afternoon of the attack in which he told the rioters: “We love you, you’re very special.” On Tuesday, in his first public appearance since the attack, he denied responsibility for it and falsely claimed that “people thought that what I said was totally appropriate.”
Hundreds of lawmakers and congressional staffers were forced into lockdown during the attack, which left five people dead.
Authorities also said they defused two bombs left at both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters.
Federal investigators have begun making arrests related to the attack on the Capitol. The FBI announced Sunday that it had arrested two men who entered the Senate chamber with plastic zip ties, which officials said could have been used to restrain hostages.
Accounts from the riot show some mob members directed their vitriol at Trump’s political opponents and Pence: Some chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” as they stormed the Capitol, while others demanded to know where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had been hidden.