House urges Pence to oust Trump; impeachment next.

The US House rushed ahead on Tuesday toward impeaching President Donald Trump for the deadly Capitol attack, taking time only to try to persuade his vice president to push him out first. Trump showed no remorse, blaming impeachment itself for the 'tremendous anger' in America.

Already scheduled to leave office next week, Trump is on the verge of becoming the only president in history to be twice impeached. His incendiary rhetoric at a rally ahead of the Capitol uprising is now in the impeachment charge against him-to be taken up Wednesday-even as the falsehoods he spread about election fraud are still being championed by some Republicans.

The House on Tuesday night approved a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Trump with a Cabinet vote, although Pence had already said he would not do so. The resolution, passed 223-205 almost entirely along party lines, urged him to 'declare what is obvious to a horrified Nation: That the President is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office.'

Hours before the vote Pence had said no. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said it would not be in the best interest of the nation and it was 'time to unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden.'

Meanwhile, five Republican lawmakers, including third-ranking House GOP leader Liz Cheney of Wyoming, announced zthey would vote to impeach Trump on Wednesday, cleaving the Republican leadership, and the party itself.

'The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,' said Cheney in a statement. 'There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.'

As lawmakers reconvened at the Capitol for the first time since the bloody siege, they were bracing for more violence ahead of Democrat Biden's inauguration on January 20.

'All of us have to do some soul searching,' said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, an author of both pieces of legislation, imploring other Republicans to join.

Trump, meanwhile, warned the lawmakers off impeachment and suggested it was the drive to oust him that was dividing the country.

'To continue on this path, I think it's causing tremendous danger to our country, and it's causing tremendous anger,' Trump said.

In his first remarks to reporters since last week's violence, the outgoing...