[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 21 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 21

Calling on Vice President Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the 
   principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to 
activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. 
     Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to 
            immediately exercise powers as acting President.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 11, 2021

 Mr. Raskin submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
                     the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Calling on Vice President Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the 
   principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to 
activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. 
     Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to 
            immediately exercise powers as acting President.

Whereas on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the day fixed by the Constitution for the 
        counting of electoral votes, Congress experienced a massive violent 
        invasion of the United States Capitol and its complex by a dangerous 
        insurrectionary mob which smashed windows and used violent physical 
        force and weapons to overpower and outmaneuver the United States Capitol 
        Police and facilitated the illegal entry into the Capitol of hundreds, 
        if not thousands, of unauthorized persons (all of whom entered the 
        Capitol complex without going through metal detectors and other security 
        screening devices);
Whereas, the insurrectionary mob threatened the safety and lives of the Vice 
        President, the Speaker of the House, and the President pro tempore of 
        the Senate, the first three individuals in the line of succession to the 
        presidency, as the rioters were recorded chanting ``Hang Mike Pence'' 
        and ``Where's Nancy'' when President Donald J. Trump tweeted to his 
        supporters that ``Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should 
        have been done to protect our country'' after the Capitol had been 
        overrun and the Vice President was in hiding;
Whereas the insurrectionary mob attacked law enforcement officers, unleashed 
        chaos and terror among Members and staffers and their families, occupied 
        the Senate Chamber and Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office along with other 
        leadership offices, vandalized and pilfered government property, and 
        succeeded in interfering with the counting of electoral votes in the 
        joint session of Congress;
Whereas the insurrectionary mob's violent attacks on law enforcement and 
        invasion of the Capitol complex caused the unprecedented disruption of 
        the Electoral College count process for a 4-hour period in both the 
        House and the Senate, a dangerous and destabilizing impairment of the 
        peaceful transfer of power that these insurrectionary riots were 
        explicitly designed to cause;
Whereas 5 Americans have died as a result of injuries or traumas suffered during 
        this violent attack on Congress and the Capitol, including Capitol 
        Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick and Ashli Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, 
        Kevin Greeson, and Benjamin Phillips, and more than 50 police officers 
        were seriously injured, including 15 officers who had to be 
        hospitalized, by violent assaults, and there could easily have been 
        dozens or hundreds more wounded and killed, a sentiment captured by 
        Senator Lindsey Graham, who observed that ``the mob could have blown the 
        building up. They could have killed us all'';
Whereas these insurrectionary protests were widely advertised and broadly 
        encouraged by President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly urged his 
        millions of followers on Twitter and other social media outlets to come 
        to Washington on January 6 to ``Stop the Steal'' of the 2020 
        Presidential election and promised his activist followers that the 
        protest on the Electoral College counting day would be ``wild'';
Whereas President-elect Joseph R. Biden won the 2020 Presidential election with 
        more than 81 million votes and defeated President Trump 306-232 in the 
        Electoral College, a margin pronounced to be a ``landslide'' by 
        President Trump when he won by the same Electoral College numbers in 
        2016, but President Trump never accepted these election results as 
        legitimate and waged a protracted campaign of propaganda and coercive 
        pressure in the Federal and State courts, in the state legislatures, 
        with Secretaries of State, and in Congress to nullify and overturn these 
        results and replace them with fraudulent and fabricated numbers;
Whereas President Trump made at least 3 attempts to intervene in the lawful vote 
        counting and certification process in Georgia and to coerce officials 
        there into fraudulently declaring him the winner of the State's 
        electoral votes, including calls to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and a 
        State elections investigator, and an hour-long conversation with 
        Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger badgering him to ``find 11,780 
        votes'' and warning of a ``big risk'' to Raffensperger if he did not 
        intervene favorably to guarantee the reelection of President Trump;
Whereas President Trump appeared with members of his staff and family at a 
        celebratory kickoff rally to encourage and charge up the rioters and 
        insurrectionists to ``walk down to the Capitol'' and ``if you don't 
        fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore'' on 
        Wednesday, January 6, 2021;
Whereas while violent insurrectionists occupied parts of the Capitol, President 
        Trump ignored or rejected repeated real-time entreaties from Speaker 
        Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to appeal to his 
        followers to exit the Capitol, and also ignored a tweet from Alyssa 
        Farah, his former communications director, saying: ``Condemn this now, 
        @realDonaldTrump--you are the only one they will listen to. For our 
        country!'';
Whereas photographs, cell phone videos, social media posts, and on-the-ground 
        reporting show that numerous violent insurrectionists who invaded the 
        Capitol were armed, were carrying police grade flex cuffs to detain and 
        handcuff people, used mace, pepper spray, and bear spray against United 
        States Capitol Police officers, erected a gallows on Capitol grounds to 
        hang ``traitors,'' vehemently chanted ``Hang Mike Pence!'' while 
        surrounding and roving the Capitol, emphasized that storming the Capitol 
        was ``a revolution,'' brandished the Confederate battle flag inside the 
        Capitol, and were found to be in possession of Napalm B, while still 
        unidentified culprits planted multiple pipe bombs at buildings near the 
        Capitol complex, another lethally dangerous criminal action that 
        succeeded in diverting law enforcement from the Capitol; and
Whereas Donald Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, continuously, and 
        spectacularly his absolute inability to discharge the most basic and 
        fundamental powers and duties of his office, including most recently the 
        duty to respect the legitimate results of the Presidential election, the 
        duty to respect the peaceful transfer of democratic power under the 
        Constitution, the duty to participate in legally defined transition 
        activities, the duty to protect and uphold the Constitution of the 
        United States, including the counting of Electoral College votes by 
        Congress, the duty to protect the people of the United States and their 
        elected representatives against domestic insurrection, mob rule, and 
        seditious violence, and generally the duty to take care that the laws be 
        faithfully executed: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives calls upon Vice 
President Michael R. Pence--
            (1) to immediately use his powers under section 4 of the 
        25th Amendment to convene and mobilize the principal officers 
        of the executive departments in the Cabinet to declare what is 
        obvious to a horrified Nation: That the President is unable to 
        successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office; and
            (2) to transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate 
        and the Speaker of the House of Representatives notice that he 
        will be immediately assuming the powers and duties of the 
        office as Acting President.
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