Here’s what the Capitol looks like with National Guard members deployed

Members of the National Guard were deployed to the US Capitol ahead of the House’s vote today on impeaching President Trump for a second time.

Photos from inside the building showed some National Guards members preparing for the day: Some were seen picking up weapons while other were seen resting on the floor.

Here’s a look at the scene from in and around the Capitol:

Members of Congress and staffers will have to walk through metal detectors in order to get onto the floor of the US House of Representatives, a senior Democratic aide told CNN Tuesday. The House is set to convene at 9 a.m. ET to debate and hold a vote on impeaching President Trump.

The development comes after multiple House Democrats told CNN they are worried about some of their Republican colleagues ignoring House rules regarding firearms. There have been multiple conversations about the need for every member of Congress and their guests to start going through metal detectors.

Capitol Police had set up metal detectors outside of the House floor as of Tuesday afternoon and all House members, staffers and aides will have to go through them, the aide said. A US Capitol Police source confirmed the measures are in place.

Acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Timothy Blodgett said in a memo to all members of Congress and their staffers that the metal detectors were being installed to ensure compliance with police regulations banning guns and incendiary devices from the chamber.

Read more here.

House Democrats and at least a handful of Republicans —including the House’s No. 3 Republican — will vote in favor of the impeachment of President Trump just one week after a deadly mob overran Capitol Police, ransacked the US Capitol and put the lives of Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers in danger.

The number of Republicans who will ultimately vote for impeachment remains unclear. So far, five Republicans have said they will vote to impeach Trump.

Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney coming out in support of impeachment yesterday ignited the first signal that the Republican Party might try to be something else after Trump. And, she didn’t just say she backed impeachment. She put the blame of the events last week squarely on Trump’s shoulders.

The divide, the differences, the revisionism that we could see in upcoming months and years is just beginning.

Little cracks are playing out across Capitol Hill right now. Staff for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are calling on their boss to explain himself. The communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz, resigned. Those who disavow Trump both before and because of this moment won’t necessarily win this ideological contest that is going to play out in the days and years ahead.

Some are going to get on this bandwagon late, many months and years after they walked in lockstep with the President. And, many may never disavow him at all. Trump’s support is still strong. There’s a reason that his followers took him seriously when he tweeted, when he made promises, when he gave instructions.

We still expect just a handful of Republicans to vote with Democrats to impeach today. One aide put that estimate – even after Cheney – at no more than 20.

Here are the Republicans who will vote to impeach:

Before President Trump came to Washington, only two Presidents had been impeached in the near two-and-a-half century history of the United States.

But Trump is now staring at the shameful distinction of being impeached by the House of Representatives twice in just over a year – a sequence that will leave a deep scar in Washington for a generation – not least because despite his aberrant behavior, Trump retains strong support among Republican lawmakers because of his near mystical hold on the party’s populist base.

Democrats introduced a resolution to impeach Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection on Monday morning.

The single charge points to Trump’s repeated false claims that he won the election and his speech to the crowd on Jan. 6 before pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol. It also cited Trump’s call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where the President urged him to “find” enough votes for Trump to win the state.

But the compressed calendar as Trump enters his last nine days in office – and the reticence of Republicans in the Senate, who are faced one again with a loyalty test they have always failed when choosing between Trump’s base and the Constitution – seems certain to thwart Democratic efforts to quickly eject Trump from power.

This means the drama surrounding Trump’s fate, and the possibility of another Senate trial, could outlast his presidency and his turbulent term could cast a toxic shadow over President-elect Joe Biden’s first days in office.

Read the full article here.

Multiple House Republicans announced Tuesday evening they would support the impeachment of President Trump for his role inciting last week’s riot as congressional Republicans made their clearest break with Trump to date after he showed no remorse for the US Capitol mob.

While the vast majority of House Republicans are expected to oppose the article of impeachment today, there are predictions ranging anywhere from as many as 10 to even 20 or more Republicans who could vote to impeach, according to Republican sources, with some estimates trending upward after the first Republicans came out in favor of impeachment Tuesday.

The first impeachment backers included the House’s No. 3 Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, in a remarkable rebuke with a President who has been unassailable in the House GOP conference throughout his four-year term. While House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is opposed to impeachment, House Republican leaders are not lobbying their members to oppose it, and Cheney told the conference Monday it was a “vote of conscience.”

In another potentially significant blow to Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that he believes that impeaching Trump will make it easier to get rid of the President and Trumpism from the Republican Party, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The scurrying away from Trump in the hours before the House will vote to impeach him Wednesday is the fiercest pushback the President has faced from Republicans since he was a GOP primary candidate who party leaders believed would fade away.

The GOP strategy on impeachment is a marked departure from the approach in 2019 when Republican leaders pushed their members to fall in line and no GOP House lawmakers defected. It shows the splintering of the GOP and how the party is deeply divided over how to respond to Trump after he incited last week’s deadly Capitol riot.

Rep. John Katko of New York was the first Republican to publicly state he would vote to impeach Trump, saying in a statement Tuesday he supported impeachment because the President needed to be held accountable for his actions.

Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, another rare Trump critic in the House GOP conference, also announced Tuesday evening that he would support impeachment.

Trump’s impeachment for the second time in 13 months — which would make him the first President in history to be impeached twice — appears to be a foregone conclusion. The only question is how many House members vote in favor of removing the President from office eight days before President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in.

Republicans tried to offer an alternative to impeachment, such as a censure vote, arguing it could win more bipartisan support than an impeachment occurring just one week after the riots. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her caucus Monday that censure was a nonstarter, and Democrats are not considering any off ramps to avoid a second impeachment.

The House is meeting today to vote to impeach President Trump a second time. Lawmakers will convene at 9 a.m. ET.

Here’s how we expect the day to play out:

As with all important votes in times of coronavirus, these things are a bit fluid. But the bottom line is this: This will pass.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington tested positive for Covid-19 after sheltering in place with members of Congress who did not wear masks during the violent attack on the US Capitol last week. 

“The callousness, the cruelty, the idiocy…is really beyond belief,” Jayapal said. 

She said she experienced some mild flu-like symptoms, including a fever, chills and a sore throat. 

She is confident that she was infected on Wednesday because she got a test on Tuesday before the Capitol riot and tested negative at the end of the day, she said.

She’ll be voting by proxy today on impeachment, she added. 

Jayapal said she “gives credit” to GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, the party’s third-ranking House leader, for announcing that she will vote to impeach President Trump. 

“The GOP is cleaving before us as we see it. And, you know, hopefully, when people see her, that will give others some strength to also do the same thing,” she said. 

Watch the interview:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters late last night that the article won’t be held back by the House and the “presumption is within a very short time” it will be transmitted to the Senate.

Asked if the House would hold back the articles, Hoyer said emphatically: “No.”

With the Senate out of session, that would very likely mean the trial would start in the first days of Biden’s term, unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agrees to bring the chamber back.

His office has not commented on Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s proposal to bring the chamber back early, but the expectation is that the trial won’t begin before Trump leaves office.

Democrats formally introduced their impeachment resolution Monday, charging President Trump with “incitement of insurrection” as they race toward making him the first president in US history to be impeached twice.

Today’s vote underscores Democrats’ fury toward Trump and his supporters after months of false rhetoric about the election being stolen whipped the President’s most ardent followers into a deadly mob last Wednesday that ransacked the Capitol, forced lawmakers to evacuate both the House and Senate – and could have been worse.

The single impeachment article points to Trump’s repeated false claims that he won the election and his speech to the crowd on Jan. 6 before the rioters breached the Capitol. It also cited Trump’s call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where the President urged him to “find” enough votes for Trump to win the state.

The resolution, which was introduced by Democrats David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of California, also cited the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, noting that it “prohibits any person who has ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against’ the United States” from holding office.

You can read the full article of impeachment against Trump here.