Rep. Chellie Pingree is cosponsoring a House resolution to condemn and investigate the actions of 147 members of Congress who sought to undo the results of the presidential election by blocking the certification of the Electoral College votes of key swing states.
Pingree, who represents Maine’s 1st District, is among 47 Democrats who have signed onto the resolution, which directs the House Ethics Committee to investigate whether they “violated their oath of office to uphold the Constitution or the Rules of the House of Representatives” when they attempted to undo the results of a democratic election. The resolution directs the committee to consider removing them from office.
Rep. Jared Golden, the Democrat who represents Maine’s 2nd District, is not among the cosponsors, but said Monday he supports “without reservation” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to impeach President Trump for inciting a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday.
“Instead of choosing to move forward with unity after this attempted coup, 140 of my Republican colleagues instead chose division,” Pingree said in a news release. “We must investigate whether their actions violated the oath of office they took a mere 72 hours prior. Without accountability, there cannot be unity.”
The resolution references Section 3 of the 14thAmendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was enacted in the aftermath of the Civil War. It prohibits anyone from serving as a U.S. senator or representative or holding any other civil or military office in the United States if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. government “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
The measure, introduced by Rep. Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, hasn’t been scheduled for a floor vote. As a House resolution, it does not require Senate action.
In an interview Monday, Pingree said it is vital that there be accountability for the insurrection at all levels, including the actions of members of Congress – eight senators and 139 representatives – involved in the effort to keep Trump in power after his election loss. Trump lost the Electoral College vote 306 to 232 and the popular vote by more than 7 million.
“The question is how did Republicans – after all that happened, with everyone’s lives in danger including their own staff – feel they had to come back and keep perpetuating this myth of a stolen election and inflame things even more,” she said. “And were some of them colluding with insurgents and assisting them?”
Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican, was the opening speaker at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” he told the crowd.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz have come under intense pressure to resign after encouraging the mob that terrorized the Capitol, resulting in five deaths and threatening the lives of members of Congress. Members of the mob were trying to find and punish Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence for not ending U.S. democracy by throwing out the results of the election to allow Trump to stay in power.
In a “60 Minutes” profile Sunday night, Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, called out Cruz and Hawley by name, noting that they were “probably in the top 10 percent of IQ in the U.S. Senate.”
“And that makes it less excusable what they did, because they knew damn well that what they were doing was wrong, and that it was inimical to the interests of this country,” King said.
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