In what ABC News has called an “extraordinary” move, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Friday that she reached out to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss the “available” options that could be taken to strip President Donald Trump of some of his presidential powers.
Pelosi, according to ABC, was seeking to prevent “‘an unstable president’ from accessing the nuclear launch codes or initiating military hostilities before he is out of office in 12 days.”
Trump, notably, ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2016 and has received three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work toward securing peace in the Middle East.
“She revealed the startling development in a letter to Democratic colleagues Friday morning, a day after she called on Vice President Mike Pence to immediately remove Trump from office by invoking the 25th Amendment and threatening a second impeachment of Trump if Pence failed to act,” ABC noted.
“This morning, I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike,” the House Speaker said in the letter. “The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy.”
“Speaker Pelosi initiated a call with the Chairman,” said a statement from Col. Dave Butler, a spokesperson for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “He answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority.”
ABC called the statement “terse.”
On Monday morning, House Democrats released the single article of impeachment they will file against Trump for allegedly inciting what they claimed was an “insurrection” last week at the U.S. Capitol, The Daily Wire reported.
Trump “willfully made statements that encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — imminent lawless action at the Capitol,” the article of impeachment accuses. “Incited by President Trump, a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol, injured law enforcement personnel, interfered with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the election results, and engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts.”
At the “Save America Rally” that preceded the riot at the Capitol, Trump told supporters to “peacefully” march to the Capitol and “cheer” on the members of Congress who were objecting to the certification of the Electoral College vote.
” … We’re going to walk down to the Capitol — and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them,” Trump told supporters. “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
“We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. Lawfully slated,” the president claimed.
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump added. “Today, we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections.”
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