US President Donald Trump impeached by House over Capitol riot

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a speech before the vote, said: “He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation we all love.”

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell announced before the House vote that a Senate trial would not be held until after Democrat Joe Biden’s inauguration, meaning Trump will serve out the remainder of his term.

The Senate could still act to ban Trump from seeking political office again if it a two-thirds majority votes to convict him of “high crimes and misdemeanours”.

The vast majority of House Republicans voted against impeaching Trump, arguing that it was pointless to impeach him so close to the end of his presidency and that Democrats had rushed the process.

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader, said: “The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on congress by mob violence.”

He added: “What we saw last week was not the American way. Neither is the continued rhetoric that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president.”

But McCarthy said impeachment was unnecessarily divisive and that he preferred a symbolic censure of Trump as well as a bipartisan fact-finding commission to examine how the Capitol riot occurred.

Andy Briggs, a Republican congressman from Arizona, said: “Instead of stopping the Trump train, his movement will grow stronger for you will have made him a martyr.”

Some Republicans said that Trump had been using political hyperbole when he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” against the certification of Biden’s victory.

In her short speech before the vote, Democratic congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard said “This President has blood on his hands.”

Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries described Trump as a “living, breathing impeachable offence”.

In a statement before the vote Trump said: “I urge that there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind […] I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers.”

The Democrats’ article of impeachment said that Trump had “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government”.

“He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperilled a co-equal branch of government,” the impeachment resolution continued.

“He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the United States.”

Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House, said that she supported impeachment because Trump “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack”.

“Everything that followed was his doing,” she said in a statement the night before the vote.

“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the constitution.”