CONGRESSIONAL Democrats on Monday formally began the process of impeaching U.S. President Donald Trump for a historic second time, accusing him of “incitement of insurrection” over his supporters’ deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol.

The move — which threatens to torpedo the single-term president’s future political ambitions — could make for a frenetic culmination of four years of controversy ahead of Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Democrats introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to remove Trump as unfit for office under the U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment.

But Republicans blocked its immediate adoption and Democrats followed up by introducing an article of impeachment of Trump for “incitement of insurrection.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi hit out at House Republicans, accusing them of enabling Trump’s “unhinged, unstable and deranged acts of sedition to continue.”

“Their complicity endangers America, erodes our Democracy, and it must end,” she said in a statement.

The House was scheduled to vote later yesterday on the demand for Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, and Pelosi gave him 24 hours to respond.

After that, she said, Democrats would move forward with an impeachment vote.

Biden has not publicly backed impeachment. But in Delaware, where the president-elect was receiving his second dose of the coronavirus vaccine, he told reporters: “I’ve been clear that President Trump should not be in office. Period.”

Trump on Monday approved the emergency declaration for Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, through Jan. 24, covering the date of Biden’s inauguration.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump declared that an emergency exists in the District of Columbia and ordered Federal assistance to supplement the District’s response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from the 59th Presidential Inauguration from Jan. 11 to Jan. 24, 2021,” the Office of the White House Press Secretary said in a statement.

The emergency declaration authorized the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate resources with state and local authorities, and came as Washington braced for a heightened possibility of violence in the lead-up to and during Biden’s inauguration.

The declaration was in response to a letter sent to Trump on Sunday by Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who already declared a 15-day public emergency for the city shortly after pro-Trump demonstrators stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

On Monday, Bowser was joined by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan in urging people to stay away from inaugural events, citing “last week’s violent insurrection as well as the ongoing and deadly COVID-19 pandemic.”

(SD-Agencies)