Top House Republican Liz Cheney says she will vote to impeach Donald Trump – live | US news

Lauren Boebert, a Republican representative of Colorado who subscribes to the QAnon conspiracy, has reportedly held up the line after setting of newly installed metal detectors at Congress.

Boebert, who has expressed enthusiasm about carrying weapons to Capitol Hill, is reportedly refusing to comply with a bag search.

Representatives are currently partaking in a procedural vote on the resolution calling on Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Republicans have introduced a resolution to formally censure Donald Trump for trying to overturn the election and encouraging “lawless action”.

The resolution, from representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, overlaps significantly with Democrats’ impeachment resolution – but rather than impeaching the president, the Republicans backing the resolution say they want to formally tell him off.

Unlike an impeachment, which will compel the Senate to vote on whether to convict and remove Trump from office, a censure is more symbolic.

Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, has signaled support for GOP representatives who said they’ll vote to impeach Trump.

Hogan has blamed Trump and some Republican leaders for inciting the attack on the Capitol last week. He told CNN that he is “embarrassed and ashamed” by party members who have amplified false claims of election fraud.

The House is now debating a resolution calling on Mike Pence to strip Trump of his powers by invoking the 25th amendment.

Congress is expected to vote on the measure at around 7.30 local time, and it’s expected to pass. It calls on Pence to “immediately” call on the cabinet to declare Trump unfit for office. But Pence is unlikely to do so, having given no signal that he will.

If Pence does not respond to Congress within 24 hours, representatives will start impeachment proceedings tomorrow.

The report details testimonials from representatives, including from Jamie Raskin of Maryland, whose daughter and son-in-law were visiting him at the Capitol on the day of the attack:

Representative Jamie Raskin asked his chief of staff to “protect [two of his visiting family members] with her life,” as she stood guard at the door clutching a fire iron. Representative Jason Crow, said that he had not been in a similar situation since serving in Afghanistan and described the chaos on the House floor: “[T]he police weren’t able to get us out so they actually closed and locked the doors and started to take furniture and barricade the doors and the windows with furniture as the mob tried to ram them down and was breaking through the windows.” Representative Susan Wild, described hearing gun shots at approximately 3pm and then Capitol police screaming “Get down! Get down!” as she crawled on her hands and knees through the gallery, witnessing her colleagues making phone calls to loved ones.

Democrats on the House judiciary committee have released a 76-page staff report on the impeachment of Donald Trump, in anticipation of Wednesday’s debate and vote on articles of impeachment.

In it, Democrats point to Trump’s continued shirking of responsibility. “The President publicly denied responsibility for the attack, claiming his words were ‘totally appropriate’,” the report reads.

Another Republican representative, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, has joined GOP members in support of impeachment.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection,” he said. “He used his position in the Executive to attack the Legislative.”

Canada has already implemented requirements for negative Covid-19 tests from incoming air passengers, as have other countries.

Right now, only air travelers coming from Britain are required to show negative test results – in order to slow the transmission of a new variant of the coronavirus first discovered in the UK, and found to be circulating in many countries, including the US.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have expanded restrictions for air travelers coming into the US, requiring negative Covid-19 test results from all passengers.

“Variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to emerge in countries around the world, and there is evidence of increased transmissibility of some of these variants,” the CDC said in a statement. “With the US already in surge status, the testing requirement for air passengers will help slow the spread of the virus as we work to vaccinate the American public.”

The new requirement will become effective on 26 January.

Cheney, a staunch conservative of Wyoming and a ranking Republican in Congress, could give cover to other Republicans who want to vote to impeach.

While House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana – who voted to object to the Electoral College results last week even after the attack on the US Capitol, Cheney has opposed the president and questioned his undermining of the elections.

She has fallen into the president’s crosshairs after opposing his efforts to invalidate the election results. At his rally in Washington, ahead of Congress’ vote to certify the election results, Trump told supporters: “The Liz Cheneys of the world. We have to get rid of them,” for this failure to back him.