Live Updates: House Starts Voting to Call on Pence to Strip Trump of Power

The House began voting on Tuesday night to formally call on Vice President Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment to strip President Trump of his powers after he incited a mob that attacked the Capitol, as lawmakers warned they would impeach the president on Wednesday if Mr. Pence did not comply.

Lawmakers, escorted by armed guards into a heavily fortified Capitol, began debating the resolution around 9:15 p.m. and were expected to vote to adopt the measure just before midnight with primarily Democratic support.

“We’re trying to tell him that the time of a 25th Amendment emergency has arrived,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the author of the resolution, said before the vote. “It has come to our doorstep. It has invaded our chamber.”

They proceeded even after Mr. Pence rejected the call in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday. “I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation or consistent with our Constitution,” he wrote. “I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our nation.”

With Mr. Pence’s rejection in hand, Republicans lined up in opposition. They did little to defend Mr. Trump’s behavior but argued that Congress had no role telling the vice president what to do.

“The vice president has given you your answer, before you asked the question,” said Representative Dan Bishop, Republican of North Carolina. “Your ultimatum does violence to a core feature of the architecture of the Constitution.”

Democrats planned to reconvene on Wednesday to vote on a single article of impeachment charging Mr. Trump with “inciting violence against the government of the United States.” The rioters last week ransacked the seat of American government and killed a Capitol Police officer.

Every single Democrat was expected to vote to impeach, and Republicans were bracing for as many as two dozen of their members to follow suit.

Breaking with Mr. Trump, Republicans were not formally pressuring lawmakers to oppose either vote. Their leaders were treading carefully, navigating an extremely complex and fast-moving political environment that threatened the cohesion of the party and that could inflict lasting damage on the country.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, had told associates that he was fine with the House moving forward with impeachment and that Mr. Trump had committed impeachable offenses, according to people familiar with his thinking.

Mr. Trump met with Mr. Pence on Monday for the first time since their falling out last week over the president’s effort to overturn the election and the mob assault, which had put the vice president in danger. The two spoke for an hour or more in the Oval Office in what amounted to a tense peace summit meeting with the remainder of the Trump presidency at stake.

The impeachment drive came as President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. signaled more clearly that he would not stand in the way of the impeachment proceeding, telling reporters in Newark, Del., that his primary focus was trying to minimize the effect that an all-consuming trial in the Senate might have on his first days in office.

He said he had consulted with lawmakers about the possibility that they could “bifurcate” the proceedings in the Senate, so that half of each day would be spent on the trial and half on the confirmation of his cabinet and other nominees.

[Read more on Trump and Pence’s blowup.]

Vice President Mike Pence late Tuesday rejected the possibility of stripping President Trump of his powers through the 25th Amendment, rebuking a resolution in the House calling on the vice president to do so.

“I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our nation or consistent with our Constitution,” Mr. Pence wrote in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “I urge you and every member of Congress to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment.”

Mr. Pence privately indicated last week that he did not support invoking the 25th Amendment, and his public rejection of the resolution all but ensured that the House would vote to impeach Mr. Trump on Wednesday.

“I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our nation,” the vice president wrote.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has told associates that he believes President Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that Democrats are moving to impeach him, believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking. The House is voting on Wednesday to formally charge Mr. Trump with inciting violence against the country.

At the same time, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader and one of Mr. Trump’s most steadfast allies in Congress, has asked other Republicans whether he should call on Mr. Trump to resign in the aftermath of the riot at the Capitol last week, according to three Republican officials briefed on the conversations.

While Mr. McCarthy has said he is personally opposed to impeachment, he and other party leaders have decided not to formally lobby Republicans to vote “no,” and an aide to Mr. McCarthy said he was open to a measure censuring Mr. Trump for his conduct. In private, Mr. McCarthy reached out to a leading House Democrat to see if the chamber would be willing to pursue a censure vote, though Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ruled it out.

Taken together, the stances of Congress’s two top Republicans — neither of whom has said publicly that Mr. Trump should resign or be impeached — reflected the politically challenging and fast-moving nature of the crisis that the party faces after the assault by a pro-Trump mob during a session to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory.

As more violent images from the mayhem wrought by the rioters emerged on Tuesday, including of the brutal attack that ultimately killed a Capitol Police officer, and as lawmakers were briefed about threats of more attacks on the Capitol, rank-and-file Republican lawmakers grew angrier about the president’s role in the violence.

Yet as they tried to balance the affection their core voters have for Mr. Trump with the now undeniable political and constitutional threat he posed, Republican congressional leaders who have loyally backed the president for four years were still stepping delicately. Their refusal to demand the president’s resignation and quiet plotting about how to address his conduct highlighted the gnawing uncertainty that they and many other Republicans have about whether they would pay more of a political price for abandoning him or for continuing to enable him after he incited a mob to storm the seat of government.

Making their task more difficult, Mr. Trump has shown no trace of contrition, telling reporters on Tuesday that his remarks to supporters had been “totally appropriate,” and that it was the specter of his impeachment that was “causing tremendous anger.”

Mr. McConnell has indicated that he wants to see the specific article of impeachment that the House is set to approve on Wednesday, and hear the eventual arguments in the Senate. The House is expected to pass the single charge on Wednesday, and a senior administration official said the White House expects about two dozen Republicans to support it. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the party’s No. 3 in the House, announced on Tuesday that she would be among them.

But the Senate Republican leader has made clear in private discussions that he believes now is the moment to move on from the weakened lame duck, whom he blames for causing Republicans to lose the Senate. Mr. McConnell has not spoken to Mr. Trump since mid-December, when the senator told the president that he would be recognizing Mr. Biden as president-elect after the Electoral College certified Mr. Biden’s victory.

On Monday, Mr. Biden telephoned Mr. McConnell to ask whether it was possible to set up a dual track that would allow the Senate to confirm Mr. Biden’s cabinet nominees and hold a Senate trial at the same time, according to officials briefed on the conversation who disclosed it on condition of anonymity. Far from avoiding the topic of impeaching Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell said it was a question for the Senate parliamentarian, and promised Mr. Biden a quick answer.

David Popp, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, declined to comment, pointing a reporter to a speech the senator made from the floor after the attack on the Capitol.

“This failed attempt to obstruct the Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our Republic,” Mr. McConnell said as the Senate reconvened on Wednesday to finish the electoral count disrupted by the siege. “Our nation was founded precisely so that the free choice of the American people is what shapes our self-government and determines the destiny of our nation.”

In the days since the attack, Mr. McCarthy has veered from asking Republican colleagues if he should call on Mr. Trump to resign to privately floating impeachment to his current posture, opposed to impeachment but open to a censure. He even approached Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, about a censure vote, saying he could deliver a large number of Republican votes for a formal rebuke if Democrats backed off impeachment.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, announced on Tuesday that she would vote to impeach President Trump, saying there had “never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States” than Mr. Trump’s incitement of a mob that attacked the Capitol last week.

In a stinging statement that drove a fissure through her party, Ms. Cheney dismissed fellow Republicans arguing that the impeachment was rushed, premature or unwarranted. Her words were unequivocal and likely to give cover to two dozen or so other House Republicans looking to break ranks and join an effort that was also said to have the tacit support of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

“Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough,” said Ms. Cheney, the scion of a storied Republican political family. “The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president.”

She added: “The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not.”

[Here is a list of Republicans supporting Trump’s impeachment.]

Ms. Cheney’s announcement came a short time after Representative John Katko of New York became the first House Republican to commit to voting to impeach.

“To allow the president of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” Mr. Katko said in a statement to Syracuse.com. “For that reason, I cannot sit by without taking action. I will vote to impeach this president.”

Representatives Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan, both Republicans, followed them.

If Mr. Trump’s actions “are not worthy of impeachment, then what is an impeachable offense?” Mr. Kinzinger said in a statement.

House Republican leaders have decided not to formally lobby members of the party against voting to impeach Mr. Trump, making an implicit break with him as they scrambled to gauge support within their ranks for a vote on Wednesday to charge him with inciting violence against the country.

Not a single Republican voted in favor of impeachment during the 2019 proceedings.

This time, Mr. Trump’s encouragement of the mob “cannot be ignored,” said Mr. Katko, a moderate who represents a district in upstate New York that voted for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“By deliberately promoting baseless theories suggesting the election was somehow stolen, the president created a combustible environment of misinformation, disenfranchisement and division,” Mr. Katko said. “When this manifested in violent acts on Jan. 6, he refused to promptly and forcefully call it off, putting countless lives in danger.”

Mr. McConnell of Kentucky has told associates that he believes Mr. Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he approves of the House moving forward with the Constitution’s most severe punishment.

If the impeachment charge were to result in a Senate conviction, the Senate could vote to bar the president from holding public office again. Two Senate Republicans had already called on Mr. Trump to resign, and advisers privately speculated that an additional dozen or so could ultimately favor convicting him at trial.

If all senators were voting, 17 Republicans would have to join Democrats to convict Mr. Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors; if they did so, only a majority would be required to disqualify him from being elected again.

Among the other House Republicans who were said to be considering voting to impeach were stalwart moderates from swing districts, like Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, as well as newly seated freshmen, like Peter Meijer of Michigan.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday named nine Democrats as managers of the impeachment trial of President Trump on charges of inciting a violent mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol, where rioters ransacked the seat of American government and killed a Capitol Police officer.

The nine managers, all lawyers, have expertise in constitutional law, civil rights and law enforcement. They will serve as the new faces of the impeachment drive after Americans last year grew accustomed to seeing Representatives Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, as the leaders of Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.

The managers come from across the country and represent different ideological wings of the party. Of the nine, seven are people of color, L.G.B.T.Q. or women.

With Democrats controlling the House, Mr. Trump is likely to become the first American president to be impeached twice.

“It is their constitutional and patriotic duty to present the case for the president’s impeachment and removal,” Ms. Pelosi said of the impeachment managers. “They will do so guided by their great love of country, determination to protect our democracy and loyalty to our oath to the Constitution.”

Ms. Pelosi named Representative Jamie Raskin, a constitutional lawyer from Maryland who drafted the impeachment article, as the lead manager of Mr. Trump’s trial. Mr. Raskin, who lost his 25-year-old son to suicide on New Year’s Eve and then survived the mob attack, is a professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law.

“I’m honored to be on a team with extremely distinguished lawyers and representatives,” Mr. Raskin said. “We have a tremendous responsibility on our shoulders right now.”

The other impeachment managers are: Representatives Diana DeGette of Colorado, a lawyer with a civil rights background; David Cicilline of Rhode Island, a former public defender; Joaquin Castro of Texas, a lawyer; Eric Swalwell of California, a former prosecutor; Ted Lieu of California, a former Air Force officer and prosecutor; Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, a former prosecutor; Joe Neguse of Colorado, a lawyer; and Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, also a lawyer.

Most Democrats are expected to support the impeachment of Mr. Trump after he spent weeks spreading baseless falsehoods about widespread election fraud and then held a large rally where he encouraged a mob to march on the Capitol as he sought to pressure lawmakers to overturn the results of a democratic election. Four Republicans have announced that they, too, will vote to impeach the president.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, said on Tuesday that she would vote to impeach Mr. Trump, adding that there had “never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States” than Mr. Trump’s incitement of the mob.

“Good for her for honoring her oath of office,” Ms. Pelosi said of Ms. Cheney, before adding that she wished “more Republicans would honor their oaths of office.”

President Trump on Tuesday showed no contrition or regret for instigating the mob that stormed the Capitol and threatened the lives of members of Congress and his vice president, saying that his remarks to a rally beforehand were “totally appropriate” and that the effort by Congress to impeach and convict him was “causing tremendous anger.”

Answering questions from reporters for the first time since the violence at the Capitol on Wednesday, Mr. Trump sidestepped questions about his culpability in the deadly riot that shook the nation’s long tradition of peaceful transfers of power.

“People thought what I said was totally appropriate,” Mr. Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, en route to Alamo, Texas, where he was set to visit the wall along the Mexican border. Instead, Mr. Trump claimed that protests against racial injustice over the summer were “a real problem.”

“If you look at what other people have said, politicians at a high level about the riots during the summer, the horrible riots in Portland and Seattle and various other places, that was a real problem,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s defiance came despite near universal condemnation of his role in stoking the assault on the Capitol, including from within his own administration and some of his closest allies on Capitol Hill.

Earlier, he asserted that it was the impeachment charge, not the violence and ransacking of the Capitol, that was “causing tremendous anger.”

Mr. Trump had been largely silent since Friday, when Twitter permanently suspended his account. When asked directly on Tuesday morning if he would resign with just nine days left in office, Mr. Trump said, “I want no violence.”

He did not address his own role in inciting the mob of his supporters. Instead, Mr. Trump framed himself as a victim, calling impeachment a “continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics.”

“I think it’s causing tremendous anger,” he said.

The aim of the trip to the border with Mexico is to promote the partially built border wall, which the Trump administration views as an accomplishment. He visited a portion of the border wall in nearby Alamo, along the Rio Grande, where he gave a brief speech before heading back to Washington.

“The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me,” he said. “But it will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration. As the expression goes, be careful what you wish for.”

Reading from a script, Mr. Trump briefly addressed the mob attack on the Capitol, noting “we believe in respecting America’s history and traditions, not tearing them down. We believe in the rule of law, not in violence or rioting.”

Across the street from the McAllen airport, pedestrian fences were placed where the president’s motorcade was expected to travel. Vehicles from the McAllen Police Department and the U.S. Border Patrol, as well as unidentified unmarked vehicles, patrolled the area ahead of Mr. Trump’s arrival.

At the Aztek Barber Shop in Alamo, Alejandro Silva, 27, said he held nothing against Mr. Trump and did not have an opinion about the border wall.

“But he shouldn’t be visiting now,” said Mr. Silva, a mechanic. “He should leave office and leave everyone alone.”

The president’s supporters were planning two parades on Tuesday in Harlingen and McAllen, but a coalition of anti-border wall activists, led by La Unión del Pueblo Entero, circulated a petition to urge politicians to cancel Mr. Trump’s trip to Alamo.

“We cannot allow Trump to bring his racist mob to the Rio Grande Valley,” said John-Michael Torres, a spokesman for the organizers.

In response to fears, Mayor Jim Darling of McAllen said in a statement: “I understand that emotions are high on both sides, for or against the President and I hope that if there are demonstrations for or against, that they are peaceful with respect to our law enforcement personnel.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an unusual message to the entire American armed forces on Tuesday reminding them that their job is to support and defend the Constitution, and to reject extremism.

“As we have done throughout our history, the U.S. military will obey lawful orders from civilian leadership, support civil authorities to protect lives and property, ensure public safety in accordance with the law, and remain fully committed to protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” said the one-page internal memo signed by the eight military chiefs.

That the chiefs found it necessary to remind their rank-and-file members of the oath to the United States was extraordinary. But the memo came as federal law enforcement authorities were pursuing more than 150 suspects, including current or former service members, involved in the mob that assaulted the Capitol last week.

“As service members, we must embody the values and ideals of the nation,” the memo continued. “We support and defend the Constitution. Any act to disrupt the constitutional process is not only against our traditions, values and oath; it is against the law.”

Defense Department officials have expressed concern that some of the rioters who stormed the Capitol are former military members. While the department has not announced a specific search for deployed National Guard troops with sympathies for the pro-Trump mob, officials said they were reviewing photographs and videos from Capitol Hill.

“We do not tolerate extremists in our ranks,” Jonathan Hoffman, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Monday. Capt. Emily Rainey, an Army officer who told The Associated Press that she had transported more than 100 people to Washington for the Trump rally, is being investigated by the Army for any connection to the riots, according to a military official. Ms. Rainey had resigned from her post in October but was not set to leave until this spring.

The State Department is canceling all planned travel by department officials this week, including what would have been Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s last foreign trip to Europe, as part of a departmentwide effort to ensure a smooth transition to the incoming Biden administration, Morgan Ortagus, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The cancellation order would also include a three-day trip to Taiwan planned by Kelly Craft, the ambassador to the United Nations. It would have been the first official visit by an American official after the State Department relaxed restrictions on such meetings — and it would almost certainly have angered the Chinese government, which views Taiwan as its sovereign territory.

Beijing has so far responded with characteristic bluster. The Xinhua state news agency ran an editorial this week calling Mr. Pompeo “the worst secretary of state in history,” while The Global Times, a state-backed tabloid, said he was pushing the Taiwan issue “deeper down the road of no return.”

The abrupt order comes as United States allies are making clear that they believe that Mr. Pompeo and President Trump presided over the most far-reaching damage in decades to America’s traditional role as an exemplar of democracy.

Mr. Pompeo’s itinerary for the Europe trip had already been shortened, with an initial cancellation of a planned stop in Luxembourg after its foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, called Mr. Trump a “criminal” and a “political pyromaniac” in an interview for feeding the riot at the Capitol.

Mr. Pompeo has not acknowledged Mr. Trump’s role in inciting the rioters who laid siege to the Capitol last week. And just weeks before, Mr. Pompeo had suggested that Mr. Trump won an election that he lost.

[Read more on Trump and Pence’s blowup.]

A group of former administration officials and anti-Trump Republicans said they would make a $50 million commitment to support the re-election of Republican lawmakers who join Democrats in supporting impeachment of the president.

The financial commitment by the group, the Republican Accountability Project, is designed to incentivize Republicans who have appeared open to voting in favor of the new article of impeachment that is expected to be considered by the House on Wednesday.

“Donald Trump has made it clear he is going to try and politically punish anyone who stands against him,” said Sarah Longwell, a prominent Never Trump Republican who is behind the new group. “His ability to to do that is diminishing by the minute, but we want to provide a counterweight to say there is real money to back people who do the right thing.”

No House Republicans supported the president’s first impeachment in 2019. But as many as a dozen Republicans were said to be considering joining Democrats this time around, including Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican.

If Ms. Cheney “continues to push for accountability,” Ms. Longwell, said, “she’s exactly the kind of person we would want to defend.”

The Republican Accountability Project will be headed up by two former Trump administration officials: Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence, who served on the coronavirus task force, and Elizabeth Neumann, who served as a deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. During the election, both Ms. Troye and Ms. Neumann became outspoken critics of the administration. The group will operate under the umbrella organization of Defending Democracy Together, an advocacy group aimed at fighting Trumpism within the Republican Party.

Ms. Longwell said the group would even consider backing Mr. Pence in his future political endeavors if he “endorses the idea that the president should resign, be subject to the 25th Amendment, or support impeachment.”

The new group also planned to release a letter signed by over 100 Republicans and former national security officials calling for Mr. Trump’s removal from office. The list included Michael Hayden, a retired Air Force general who directed both the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency under President George W. Bush; and two former acting attorneys general: Peter D. Keisler and Stuart M. Gerson.

A day after Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, buried his 25-year-old son, he survived the mob attack on the Capitol. He is now leading the impeachment effort against President Trump for inciting the siege.

Mr. Raskin’s son, Tommy Raskin, a 25-year-old Harvard University law student, social justice activist, animal lover and poet, died by suicide on New Year’s Eve. He left his parents an apology, with instructions: “Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me.”

As he found himself hiding with House colleagues from a violent mob, Mr. Raskin feared for the safety of a surviving daughter who had accompanied him to the Capitol to witness the counting of electoral votes to seal Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

Within hours, Mr. Raskin was at work drafting an article of impeachment with the mob braying in his ear and his son’s final plea on his mind. (It was introduced in the House on Monday.)

“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to live up to those instructions,” the Maryland Democrat said in an interview on Monday, reading aloud the farewell note as he reflected on his family’s grief and the confluence of events. “But what we are doing this week is looking after our beloved republic.”

The slightly rumpled former constitutional law professor has been preparing his entire life for this moment. That it should come just as he is suffering the most unimaginable loss a parent can bear has touched his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

“I’ve been in awe of the personal strength and character he has shown through all of this, and we’re all supportive of him as a person and his family,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the House Rules Committee, who voted with 146 other Republicans to block certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s transition team hopes to persuade Senate Republicans to help him quickly confirm his top national security nominees with the goal of having them confirmed on Inauguration Day, next Wednesday.

Mr. Biden is particularly eager to see the confirmation of his nominee to run the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, given the department’s important role in monitoring and defending against extremist threats, including right-wing groups threatening violence against political leaders.

The transition team’s plan to lobby Republicans both publicly and privately was first reported on Tuesday, and confirmed by a transition official.

Republicans currently control the Senate, its committees and floor schedules. Democrats will take control of the chamber on Jan. 20 once Mr. Biden is sworn in, thanks to their two newly-elected senators from the Georgia runoffs and the tiebreaking vote ensured in a 50-50 Senate by incoming Vice President Kamala Harris.

Mr. Biden and his aides also hope to win quick confirmation for his nominee to lead the Department of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III — an effort that will also require winning over Democrats who are reluctant to grant Mr. Austin a waiver that is required for recently-retired members of the military from leading the Pentagon. (Mr. Austin is a former four-star Army general who retired in 2016.) While it is the Senate that confirms cabinet nominees, both the House and Senate must approve the waiver for Mr. Austin.

Some national security analysts are concerned that foreign adversaries might take advantage of the unusually chaotic presidential transition — and the depleted leadership of national security departments in the waning days of Mr. Trump’s term — either to challenge the United States or take actions with relative impunity.

Mr. Biden’s other top national security nominees are Avril D. Haines to be director of National Intelligence, Antony J. Blinken to be secretary of state, and William Burns to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday expressed skepticism that Lloyd J. Austin III, a retired four-star Army general who is President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pick for secretary of defense, should be given a Congressional waiver needed to serve in that role.

The waiver, the subject of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, is required for any Pentagon chief who has been retired from active-duty military service for fewer than seven years. Mr. Austin, who would be the nation’s first Black defense secretary, retired in 2016.

Congress approved a similar measure four years ago for President Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, a retired four-star Marine officer. But many Republicans seem reluctant to grant that to Mr. Biden’s pick, and Democrats, long skeptical of the practice, did not seem uniformly moved by the case to do it again either, in spite of the historic nature of Mr. Austin’s nomination.

“This is a very deep and difficult issue,” said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine. “General Austin is well qualified,” Mr. King said, “but on the other hand the whole idea of civilian control of the military is a fundamental part of who were are.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, suggested that two presidents in a row have created “a new rationale” for such a waiver, creating a bad precedent. Senators Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and a Iraq war veteran, and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said they would reject the waiver with Ms. Warren saying, “I believe in this principle.”

While the outgoing chairman of the committee, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, has made it clear that he will support the waiver and doesn’t really believe in the requirement, other Republicans seemed unconvinced.

Mr. Biden had not provided “logic or full explanation as to why he has asked us to once again step away from what was established law,” said Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, who has previously approved such a waiver for President Trump’s nominee. “I am torn on this.”

Several other senators from both parties made similar comments, though Ms. Warren and others have said that a vote against a waiver did not mean they would vote against Mr. Austin’s confirmation.

Transition officials for the incoming Biden administration have expressed repeated confidence in his confirmation and waiver approval, and have urged members to speed up confirmation proceedings for their national security nominees generally.

Mr. Austin did not attend the hearing, and the vote on the waiver issue — required in both the House and the Senate — will likely not happen until after his Senate confirmation hearings begin next week.

With the resignation of Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary for the Homeland Security Department, on Monday, the task of coordinating the security of the upcoming inauguration, will now fall to Peter T. Gaynor, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who will replace Mr. Wolf for the remaining days in the Trump administration.

The Secret Service, which falls under the Homeland Security Department, is leading the security operations for the event on Jan. 20, and officials are bracing for heightened threats of violence.

Before his resignation, Mr. Wolf announced that enhanced security measures would begin on Jan. 13 instead of Jan. 19 as initially planned.

Mr. Wolf said he did so “in light of events of the past week and the evolving security landscape leading up to the inauguration.”

On Saturday, the mayor of Washington, Muriel E. Bowser, sent a firmly worded letter to the Department of Homeland Security, asking officials to move up security operations and requesting a disaster declaration, which would free federal funding for the inauguration. President Trump granted the request on Monday night.

Ms. Bowser’s call to action came as law enforcement officers in several states made arrests related to the assault on the Capitol.

Security experts have warned that some far-right extremist groups have now started to focus attention on Inauguration Day and are already discussing an assault similar to the one on the Capitol last week. Sixteen groups — some of them armed and most of them hard-line supporters of Mr. Trump — have already registered to stage protests in Washington.

The National Guard plans to deploy up to 15,000 troops to the nation’s capital for the inauguration.

Six thousand troops from six states have already arrived, according to the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson. Defense officials have not made a decision on whether the troops will be armed, but they indicated that even if they were initially unarmed, the troops would not be far away from their weaponry.

With just days remaining in his term, House Democrats have introduced an article of impeachment in Congress charging President Trump for a second time with committing “high crimes and misdemeanors,” this time for his role in inciting a mob that stormed the Capitol last week.

Impeaching a president with less than two weeks left in his term presents an extraordinary challenge. But if Mr. Trump is impeached in the House and subsequently convicted by a two-thirds vote in the Senate and removed from office, the Senate could then vote to bar him from ever holding office again.

The Constitution says that the Senate, after voting to convict an impeached president, can consider “disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.” This would be determined by a second vote, requiring only a simple majority of senators to successfully disqualify him from holding office in the future. Such a vote could be appealing not just to Democrats but also possibly to many Republicans who have set their sights on the presidency.

Mr. Trump, who is said to be contemplating another run for president in 2024, has just eight days remaining in office, presenting an impeachment timeline for congressional Democrats that is tight, but not impossible. As soon as the House votes to adopt an article of impeachment, it can immediately transmit it to the Senate, which must promptly begin a trial.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, has said that an impeachment trial could not be convened before Mr. Trump leaves office, but Constitutional scholars say that a Senate trial and a vote for disqualification could happen after Jan. 20.

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, suggested that the Senate trial be delayed several months into President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidency. And Mr. Biden said he had spoken to House and Senate Democrats about whether it would be possible to “bifurcate” Congressional business, splitting days between impeachment and confirming his nominees and passing his agenda.

But because of the stakes and the lack of a precedent for disqualifying a president from future office, the matter would probably go before the Supreme Court.

Progressive House Democrats on Monday introduced legislation that would allow a committee to investigate and potentially expel Republican lawmakers who had participated in efforts to subvert the results of the November election.

The legislation would direct the House ethics committee to “investigate, and issue a report on” lawmakers who had sought to overturn the election, and to determine if they “should face sanction, including removal from the House of Representatives.”

House lawmakers can be expelled from their seats under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies elected officials who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.

Representative Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, began drafting the bill as she and other House lawmakers sheltered in place during the storming of the Capitol last week. The resolution, which has 47 co-sponsors, names Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama and Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri as leaders of the effort by 147 Republicans to overturn the results of the election.

Ms. Bush said in an interview that she did not know ultimately how many members of Congress should be expelled, but expected to learn the number from an investigation of the Ethics Committee.

“Even if it’s just a few, we have to make sure the message is clear that you cannot be a sitting Congress member and incite an insurrection and work to overturn an election,” she said.

The disqualification clause of the 14th Amendment was originally enacted to limit the influence of former Confederates in the Reconstruction era.

Representative Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York called out one of his Republican colleagues, Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, in a post on Twitter on Sunday supporting the legislation.

“We didn’t come to the United States Congress to tolerate calls for insurrection from our colleagues,” Mr. Bowman wrote. “We need to pass @CoriBush’s resolution calling for their expulsion, and we need to do it immediately.”

The Trump administration will recommend providing a wider distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, just days after aides to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said his administration would make a similar adjustment by using more of the already procured vaccines for initial doses.

Mr. Biden’s team has said it would aim to distribute the doses more quickly at federally run vaccination sites at high school gyms, sports stadiums and mobile units to reach high-risk populations.

The Trump administration plans to release the shots that had been held back and aims to make the vaccine available to everyone over 65 in an attempt to accelerate lagging distribution.

The doses had been held back to ensure that those who receive a first dose had the second and final inoculation available when it was needed. The change means all existing doses will be sent to states to provide initial inoculations. Second doses are to be provided by new waves of manufacturing.

The idea of using existing vaccine supplies for first doses has raised objections from some doctors and researchers, who say studies of the vaccines’ effectiveness proved only that they worked to prevent illness when using two doses.

The agency is expected to announce the new guidelines at a briefing at noon Eastern on Tuesday, according to an official briefed on the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly about the change. Axios earlier reported the new guidelines.

More than 375,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States since the start of the pandemic. In recent days, the number of daily deaths in the country has topped 4,000.