Republicans argue Trump impeachment will divide US, Dems say action needed now

​The House of Representatives began its hearing to impeach President Trump on Wednesday with Republicans arguing that taking such an action after the storming of the US Capitol would only divide the nation more, and Democrats saying lawmakers must act immediately because the president is too dangerous to remain in the White House.

“We have an opportunity to move forward but we cannot if the majority insists on bringing the country through the trauma of another impeachment,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Ok.) said on the House floor.

“It will carry forward into the next president’s term, ensuring that he will struggle to organize his administration. What’s worse, it will continue to generate the bitterness so many of us have opposed. Why put us through that when we can’t actually resolve this before the end of the president’s term,” he said.

He went on to call the hearing a “flawed process” and said the controversy accompanying the impeachment effort will continue in the Senate, for the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden and for the nation.

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern said time is of the essence to remove Trump for his role in the Capitol mayhem.

“We are debating this historic measure at a crime scene,” said McGovern of Massachusetts.

“This was not a protest this was an insurrection,” he said, adding that the rioters were “acting under the order of Donald Trump.”

Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer pointed out that House Republicans, including Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and John Katko of New York, said they would vote to impeach Trump.

“Representative Cheney from Wyoming, a conservative Republican said this, ‘the president of the United States summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.’ That is not some irresponsible new member of the Congress of the United States,” Stoyer said of Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House.

“This is the daughter of the former Republican whip, and former vice president of the United States of America, she knows of what she speaks,” he said.

Speaking of Kinzinger, Hoyer said the congressman “doesn’t need any long drawn out consideration. ‘If these actions are not worthy of impeachment, then what is an impeachable offense?’… ‘There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United States, broke his oath and incited this insurrection,’” he said quoting Kinzinger.