Isolated Trump faces impeachment threat

Washington: With only days left in his presidency, Donald Trump - silenced by Twitter and shunned by a growing number of Republican officials - faces a renewed drive by Democrats to remove him from office after he incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol.

Democratic members of the House of Representatives will introduce formal articles of impeachment on Monday, Representative Ted Lieu said on Twitter. The California Democrat, who helped draft the charges, said the articles had drawn 180 co-sponsors as of Saturday afternoon. A spokeswoman for Lieu said no Republicans have yet signed on. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top congressional Democrat, has threatened to impeach Trump for a historic second time unless he resigned "immediately," a move the pugnacious president is unlikely to consider.

Pelosi has also asked members to draft legislation aimed at invoking the U.S. Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows the removal of a president unable to fulfil the duties of the office.

Trump "has done something so serious -- that there should be prosecution against him," Pelosi told CBS' "60 Minutes" according to an early excerpt of the interview.

The intensifying effort to oust Trump from the White House has drawn scattered support from Republicans, whose party has been splintered by the president's actions. Democrats have pressed Vice President Mike Pence to consider the 25th Amendment, but a Pence adviser has said he opposes the idea.

The odds that Trump will actually be removed before Jan. 20, when President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, remain long. Any impeachment in the House would trigger a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, which is scheduled to be in recess until Jan. 19 and has already acquitted Trump once before. Trump has said he will not be at Biden's inauguration, but Pence will attend, a senior administration official said on Saturday.