Hawaii’s congressional delegation backs effort to remove Trump from office

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - All four members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation have joined a growing number of lawmakers who say President Trump should be removed from office.

Most Democrats, and many Republicans, put the blame squarely on Trump after hundreds of protesters bearing Trump flags and clothing broke into the Capitol on Wednesday and caused destruction and mass evacuations. Four people died, including a woman who was fatally shot.

US Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, both said Trump cannot remain in office.

“I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Schatz said, in a statement. “We must both initiate impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives and invoke the 25th Amendment. Our vigilance must increase, not wane, in the final days.”

Hirono told Hawaii News Now that Trump should be removed “as soon as possible.”

“Probably the quickest way to do it is for Vice President Pence and the remaining members of the Trump Cabinet, or those who already haven’t abandoned ship, like rats leaving a sinking ship, is for them to come together and deem the president unfit to continue and invoke the 25th Amendment.”

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.

US Reps. Kai Kahele and Ed Case also threw their support behind removal.

“I’m immediately calling, along with many other members of the house and the senate, for the Vice President of the United States to invoke the 25th Amendment, and to get a majority of the cabinet to remove the president from office,” Kahele said.

“And that’s something that they can do tonight. They can do it right now.”

Kahele said Trump should be removed from possible as quickly as possible.

“President Trump is a national disgrace. I don’t trust anything that President Trump says at this point. Thirteen days is 13 days too long,” he said.

In a statement on Thursday evening, Case also said the 25th Amendment should be invoked.

“The President’s recent actions, including his flagrant attempted subversion of our election process and his incitement of yesterday’s violent attack on our U.S. Capitol, cross any reasonable line into an assault on our very foundations,” he said.

Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20 with Democrat Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Kahele said he has already signed on to the impeachment effort against the president.

“I would never imagine in my first four days as Hawaii’s newest member of Congress that I would have signed articles of impeachment against the president of the United States, but that’s what it’s come to,” said Kahele.

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the president should immediately be removed from office or Congress may proceed to impeach him.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer also called for the the Cabinet to remove him.

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