Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries voted on Wednesday to impeach
President Donald Trump. REUTERS
House impeaches
President Trump
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
Every Democrat Brooklyn
Democrat voted to impeach
President Donald
Trump for the second time,
leaving Republican Nicole
Malliotakis as the only member
of Kings County’s Congressional
delegation to vote
COURIER LIFE, JANUARY 15-21, 2021 5
against the indictment.
Members of the nation’s
lower legislative body casted
their historic votes to impeach
the president for the
second time just days after a
violent mob stormed the US
Capitol building, incited by
Trump’s unsubstantiated
claims of widespread voter
fraud in crucial swing states.
Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem
Jeffries took to social media
to say, “Today the House will
impeach President Trump.
For a second time. To protect
the safety and well-being of
the American people.”
Bay Ridge and Staten Island
Rep. Malliotakis, meanwhile,
voted against the measure,
claiming voter fraud
occurred in Pennsylvania
and Arizona, and referring
to House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi’s remarks after President
George W. Bush’s reelection
in the 2004 national
election.
“It is the duty of Congress
to oversee the certifi cation
of electoral votes and taking
the lead of @SpeakerPelosi
in 2005, have robust and respectful
debate. It is not our
duty to simply serve as rubber
stamps,” she tweeted.
Trump will almost certainly
remain in offi ce until
the end of his term on Jan.
20, as the impeachment will
require a two-thirds majority
in the Republican-dominated
US Senate, where the
vast majority of Republicans
oppose the president’s removal.
TRUMP’S OUSTER
back calls for impeachment
Crowds gathered at Barclays Center Thursday to denounce President Donald Trump’s actions which led to the
incursion of the US Capitol, and call for his impeachment. Photos by Dean Moses and Lloyd Mitchell
BY BEN VERDE
Hundreds of anti-Trump
protesters marched through
Brooklyn on Thursday to call
for the president’s impeachment
after his supporters
launched an insurrection at
the US Capitol Building.
Beginning with a rally at
Barclays Center, the demonstrators
marched down Flatbush
Avenue to the Prospect
Park West apartment building
of incoming Senate majority
Leader Chuck Schumer
— where they demanded the
legislator act to both remove
Trump and expel the Republican
politicians they claim are
equally responsible for perpetuating
the myth of a stolen
election.
“We are here today to demand
that the people responsible
for aiding and abetting
the white supremacist terrorism
that we saw yesterday be
held accountable,” said New
York City Democratic Socialists
of America Co-Chair
Chi Anunwa outside the Fort
Greene arena.
The idea of a potential impeachment
has already gathered
signifi cant support in
both legislative chambers,
including from Schumer and
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Demonstrators at the
night’s rally also blasted the
soft approach taken by the
Capitol Police toward the pro-
Trump rioters to the paramilitary
response to Black
Lives Matter protests over the
summer — which the demonstrators
chalked up to the fact
that the crowd in DC was predominantly
white.
“We know if those insurrectionists
and rioters had
but an ounce of melanin in
their skin, they’d still be
cleaning up the blood on the
fl oor and the steps,” said Public
Advocate Jumaane Williams,
who earlier Thursday
joined with a cadre of local
elected offi cials calling for an
offi cial investigation into the
behavior of law enforcement
tasked with protecting the
Capitol from destruction and
violence. “We wouldn’t have
even made it to the steps.”
But, comparing Wednesday’s
riot with the summer’s
Black Lives Matter protests
was disingenuous, Williams
said, due to the vastly different
issues the two groups
were demonstrating for.
“There were people marching
in the streets saying
‘Black Lives Matter’ trying
to raise up the fact that Black
people were dying, unarmed
by police offi cers — statesanctioned
violence,” the public
advocate said. “If you saw
what happened yesterday and
saw what happened to people
in the Black Lives Matter
movement and still do not see
the disparity in this country,
you are now willfully ignorant
and willfully complicit
in that disparity.”
Police made no arrests
and issued no summons at
Thursday night’s Brooklyn
rally, which also featured
calls from demonstrators to
defund the police, and chants
of “quit your jobs” directed at
uniformed offi cers.
Once outside Senator
Schumer’s apartment, organizers
sent a message to the Democratic
Party leadership — who
are set to assume control of the
White House along with both
legislative chambers in Washington
— that they would continue
to pressure them to enact
progressive legislation now
that they were in power.
“We are going to be out
here protesting, we are going
to be in the chambers in
Albany, we are going to be
in D.C., we’re going to be all
over,” said Queens Assembly
Member Zohran Mamdani.
“To make it very clear – the
days of the bare minimum
are over.”