Republican Rep. calls Trump ‘unfit’, ‘unwell,’ joins removal calls

Republican Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger is calling on President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office, which would temporarily elevate Vice President Mike Pence.

Kinzinger made the remarks Thursday in a video posted to Twitter, responding to the violent mob that stormed Congress on Wednesday in an attempt to stop the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win over Trump.

Kinzinger says, “the president is unfit. And the president is unwell.” He went on to say Trump “must now relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily.”

The 25th Amendment allows for the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the president unfit for office.

The vice president then becomes acting president.

Numerous legal groups, including Lawyers Defending American Democracy, called for Trump’s removal. “The president is a danger to the country,” the group said in a statement.

Also Thursday, that the leader of a major Washington-based law firm, Philip Inglima of Crowell & Moring LLP, said the firm’s management board is asking for Trump’s removal via the 25th Amendment and that he would contact as many law firms as possible to join the firm’s statement.

“The President has proven himself unfit for office, and a reckless and wanton threat to the Constitution that he pledged to preserve, protect, and defend. We call upon the Vice President and the Cabinet officers to invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, and to declare to the leaders of Congress that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” the firm’s statement said. “We further call upon all law firm leaders and all lawyers in government to join in this call, and to stand up for the democratic institutions and traditions of our republic and the Constitution that gives them life and protection.”

The 25th Amendment, authored by the late Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh and ratified in 1965, governs presidential disability and succession. Section 4 reads as follows:

“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

“Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”