Donald Trump has warned efforts to remove him from office will “come back to haunt” Joe Biden as the FBI warns of plots by armed protesters ahead of next week’s inauguration.
US law enforcement bosses have said any attempts to oust Trump from power early could lead to more armed riots, with fanatical supporters targeting politicians.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have formally charged him with one count of “incitement of insurrection” and hope to vote as early as today.
House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said she will move forward with impeaching Trump if Vice-President Mike Pence does not invoke the 25th amendment.
But Trump called the process the “continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics”.
“I think it’s causing tremendous anger and it’s really a terrible thing that they are doing,” he added.
Making his first public appearance since last Wednesday’s chaos the disgraced US President also showed no contrition for remarks he made to supporters prior to and during the attack.
“What I said was totally appropriate,” he told reporters as he left for a trip to the US-Mexico border wall near Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday.
“I want no violence,” he added.
At a rally Trump had encouraged fanatical supporters – many of them armed – to descend on the Capitol as Congress finalised the procedure to declare Joe Biden as President.
And during the mayhem he had initially refused to order rioters to back down, instead he was deemed to be inciting violence via social media before Twitter and Facebook banned him from both platforms.
He went on to lambast Democrats for pushing ahead with a drive to impeach him for an unprecedented second time, as well as the pressure on Pence to invoke the 25th.
Both would see him ousted from office and scupper his hopes of running again in 2024.
“Free speech is under assault like never before,” Trump said.
“The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration.
“As the expression goes, ‘be careful what you wish for’,” he told the president-elect.
Referring to attempts to impeach him, he claimed: “It’s causing tremendous anger and division and pain far greater than most people will ever understand, which is very dangerous for the USA, especially at this very tender time.”
But Trump’s iron grip on his party is showing further signs of weakening after at least three Republicans, including a member of the House leadership, said they would vote to impeach him.
Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, said: “There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
Two other Republican House members, John Katko and Adam Kinzinger, said they would also vote for the historic second impeachment of the Republican president, who leaves office in just eight days.
Their announcements came as Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday refrained from urging their members to vote against impeaching Trump, saying it was a matter of individual conscience after his supporters ransacked the Capitol.
The House plans to vote as soon as Wednesday on an article of impeachment, unless he resigns or Pence moves to oust him under a provision in the US Constitution.
The House was set to vote on Tuesday on a separate non-binding resolution that would call on Pence to utilise the 25th, a procedure that has never been attempted in U.S. history.
The New York Times reported that the Republican majority leader of the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, was said to be pleased about the Democratic impeachment push, suggesting Trump’s party was looking to move on from him after last week’s stunning attack on Congress.
McConnell believes the impeachment effort will make it easier to purge Trump from the party, the Times said.
Any impeachment would trigger a trial in the Senate, which is scheduled to be in recess until January 19 and has already acquitted Trump once before.
As a result, he is unlikely to be removed prior to Biden taking over at the White House next week.
Referring to the Capitol riots, Trump did move to urge supporters to show “respect for law enforcement” which he described as the “foundation of the MAGA agenda”.
He added: “We’re a nation of law, and a nation of order.”
In relation to his rally speech prior to the failed coupe, he said: “So if you read my speech – and many people have done it, and I’ve seen it both in the papers and in the media, on television.
“It’s been analysed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate.”
“Everybody, to the T, thought it was totally appropriate,” he insisted moments before stepping onto Air Force One.
It comes as US law enforcement bosses warned of a plot in which 4,000 armed protesters could descend on Washington in the coming days, encircling the Capitol once again and potentially assassinating politicians.
It was one of three extremist plots picked up by security services that were detailed in a phone call between US Capitol Police and Democrat members of Congress,according to politicians who were on the call, reports The Times.
It also emerged that the FBI had warned extremists were planning for “war” the day before the storming of the Capitol on January 6.
*story by Mirror Online