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Amid growing concerns about what U.S. President Donald Trump might do during his last days in office, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she had asked a top Pentagon general what measures were in place to prevent the president from launching a nuclear weapons attack.
The possibility, while seemingly remote, may be a consideration in a drive by Pelosi and some other national leaders to remove Trump from office even before his term in office ends on January 20.
"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," Pelosi wrote in a letter to her Democratic Party colleagues in the House of Representatives.
"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."
Asked to confirm the call had taken place, a spokesman for Milley told VOA, "He answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear code authority."
The spokesman did not elaborate on what was said during the call.
Illegal order
The president has sole authority to order the launch of a nuclear weapon and does not require the approval of Congress or his military advisers. But if a military commander were to determine, on advice of his lawyers, that such an order was illegal, then the order could be refused.
Past and present Pentagon leaders have also said they would not obey an illegal order from the president.
Pelosi and her colleagues are also anxious to see the president held accountable for his role in inciting the mob that overran the U.S. Capitol this week, delaying the certification of the election of President-elect Joe Biden and leading to the deaths of five people, including a Capitol Police officer.
A move to impeach Trump for the second time - if he was convicted in the Republican-led Senate - would also have the effect of preventing him from ever again holding federal office.
Democratic congressional leaders have also called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which offers an alternative and perhaps quicker way to remove the president from office. Pence has not responded but has reportedly told colleagues he does not favor such action.
Passed in the 1960s, the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows for the temporary transfer of power from the president to the vice president if the president is incapacitated, with the approval of the majority of the Cabinet. But analysts say that option could be difficult to exercise with just days left in Trump's presidency.
Power can be reclaimed
"It's also very difficult in a situation in which the president is not in a coma or not otherwise physically incapacitated so that he can't function or operate, because under the 25th Amendment, once it is invoked, the president can notify Congress that he is able to discharge the powers of the office and take that power back," said John Hudak, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Pelosi warned that if Pence did not take action, congressional Democrats would pursue a vote on articles of impeachment.
"The president's dangerous and seditious acts necessitate his immediate removal from office," Schumer and Pelosi said Thursday.
An overwhelming number of Democratic lawmakers - and some Republicans - have expressed support for removing Trump from power or censuring his actions. But following Pelosi's remarks, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy indicated he did not support impeachment.
"Impeaching the president with just 12 days left in his term will only divide our country more," he said.
McCarthy said he had reached out to Biden to plan to speak with him about how to work together to lower tensions and unite the country.
On Friday, Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, that the quickest way to remove Trump from office will be during the official transfer of power when Biden is sworn in alongside Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Inauguration Day.
"What actually happens before or after that is a judgment for the Congress to make," Biden said.
Previous impeachment
If lawmakers move forward with Trump's impeachment, it would be the second time. Trump was impeached on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December 2019 but was acquitted in a trial in the U.S. Senate in February 2020. No American president has ever faced two impeachment votes.
"There are two reasons to pursue impeachment," said Paul Berman, a professor of law at the George Washington University School of Law. "One is simply to make it clear that a sitting president inciting an insurrection against the United States government is perhaps the worst thing that a president could ever possibly do. And that statement needs to be made. Second, and more pragmatically, if he were impeached, and convicted, that would prevent him from running for office in the future."
While it is unlikely U.S. lawmakers have time to return to work to enact the complicated procedures for an impeachment before the end of Trump's term, analysts say a Senate trial could be held after the president leaves office.
"There's nothing that I can see in the Constitution that would prevent an impeachment trial and conviction from happening in the days after he leaves office," Berman said. "We need to create accountability that a president cannot do what he did and also because we want to prevent him from holding office ever again."