Former president Donald Trump makes history with second impeachment

By Riya Khatod, Copy Editor

On Jan. 13, the House of Representatives voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for the second time. 10 Republican representatives, including Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington, Rep. John Katko of New York, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina and Rep. David Valadao of California, joined 222 Democratic representatives in the vote to impeach President Trump. The final vote was 232 in favor of impeachment to 197 against.

The House, led by Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu of California, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and David Cicilline of Rhode Island introduced the articles of impeachment on Jan.11, claiming that Trump attempted to unlawfully overturn the election results in which he lost to President Joe Biden. The allegation arose after Trump called Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, and repeatedly asked him to overturn the verified election results in the state of Georgia. 

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state,” Trump said in the call to Raffensperger. For context, Biden won the state of Georgia by 11,779 votes.

The second impeachment article alleges that in a speech at his rally, Trump incited an attempted coup against the United States. 

“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong,” Trump said at his final presidential rally right before the Jan. 6 Capitol storming. 

Shortly after his speech, thousands of Trump supporters carrying Trump 2020 flags and wearing Make America Great Again (MAGA) merchandise marched to the Capitol where a joint session of Congress was beginning to count the electoral college votes.The crowd breached the barrier formed by Capitol police and flooded the Capitol. The mob destroyed parts of the Capitol building and defaced statues and offices of Congress members in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory. 

Samo students had their own opinions on the Capitol riot. Ava Lowe (’23) was outraged at the Trump supporters’ disrespect to the democratic process.

“The people that support Trump are always talking about how they respect their country and yet they go and pull something like this and disregard the democracy they apparently fight so hard for,” Lowe said. 

Kalana Ortega Hoefner (’21) had a different perspective. She was not only upset by the blatant disregard of democracy, but also by the hypocrisy of the military response to peaceful Black Lives Matter protests versus the Capitol riot.

“I was definitely enraged by the blatant hypocrisy of the situation; they can send armed police and national guard troops to peaceful protests, but not when white supremacists invade a federal building,” Hoefner said.

On Feb. 9, the official senate trial will begin to determine whether or not Trump will be acquitted or convicted. The senate will meet six days a week during the trial which will be presided over by Vermont Senator, Partick Leahy, while nine House of Representative Democrats known as the impeachment managers present the case as to why Trump should be convicted. If Trump is convicted he will not receive the former presidential privileges of his predecessors, including approximately a $200,000 pension, $1 million travel budget and funding for an office space and staff. If the Senate believes conviction is not an appropriate sanction, members may also permanently disqualify Trump from running for federal office.