Democrats call for Trump's removal

It's time to invoke the 25th Amendment and to end this nightmare."

Three Democratic members of the House judiciary committee — David Cicilline, Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin — said Thursday that they are circulating articles of impeachment of Trump over the violence.

The articles would bar Trump from holding public office, ending any hope of his returning to the White House in the 2024 election.

"Our deep political divisions, coupled with the erosion of the core purposes of many of our major institutions for more partisan ends and, as a result, the decline of their actual capacity to perform their basic functions, leave us in dire circumstances," Stanley Renshon, a political scientist at City University of New York, told China Daily.

"The election did not resolve this issue and after the Georgia election results are likely only to exacerbate it," Renshon said.

Supporters of Trump's policies will be appalled by yesterday's events as any American is likely to be, he said.

"American politics crosses the Rubicon," Renshon said, emphasizing that he used the Rubicon phrase in the more modern sense of "point of no return".

Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former acting chief of staff who resigned as special envoy to Northern Ireland on Wednesday night, told CNBC on Thursday that Trump had become increasingly erratic.

"It does not surprise me at all that the 25th Amendment is being discussed," he said. "Clearly he is not the same as he was eight months ago and certainly the people advising him are not the same as they were eight months ago and that leads to a dangerous sort of combination as you saw yesterday."

Mulvaney said that he had called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the night before and told him: "I can't stay here, not after yesterday. You can't look at that yesterday and think 'I want to be part of that' in any way, shape or form.'"

More advisers to the president and administration officials quit in protest to the storming of the Capitol.

The acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Tyler Goodspeed, resigned on Thursday, as did the president's deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger, a person familiar with his decision told The New York Times. "The events of yesterday made my position no longer tenable," he told the Times.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on Thursday became the first Cabinet member to resign.

In a letter posted on Twitter, Chao said that she would leave her post on Jan 11 and that her office would cooperate with Biden's nominee for transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.

"Yesterday, our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the president stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed," she wrote. "As I'm sure is the case with many of you, it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside."

Former Attorney General William Barr, once one of the president's strongest defenders until resigning himself last month, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the president's actions were a "betrayal of his office and supporters" and that "orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable".

His statement followed similar ones by Representatives Charlie Crist and Ted Lieu on Wednesday and a letter signed by 17 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee was sent to Pence calling to invoke the 25th Amendment.

On Thursday, a Washington-based law firm, Crowell & Moring, which represents a number of Fortune 500 companies, asked other lawyers to join the firm in calling for Trump's removal, saying "when it comes to defending our Constitution and our system of laws, we have a special duty and an exceptional perspective".

Heng Weili in New York contributed to this story.