About 100 residents turn out to call for impeachment in Carson City

Despite temperatures dipping into the high 20s, nearly 100 people lined Carson Street in front of the Nevada Legislature on Tuesday evening calling for Congress to impeach and remove President Trump from office.

In Carson organizers said the actual turnout was significantly better than they expected because of the cold. But they were greeted by dozens of drivers on Carson Street honking their support for the participants

Ed Andrews said the movement, “is about a president who has abused his office.”

Fellow organizer Laura Hale said the turnout was also intended to put pressure on Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., the only member of Nevada’s congressional delegation not calling for impeachment.

She said Amodei makes vague, non-committal statements about numerous politically charged issues. She said in a district that is becoming more and more moderate, Amodei needs to represent the voters, not just the Republican Party.

“This is about our constitution and our democracy,” she said. “A lot of folks are asking Amodei to stand up but every single time, he votes the party line.”

Hale urged those attending the event to join her and others at 3 p.m. on Fridays at Amodei’s office in Reno to raise awareness of his stands.

Former Nevada Assemblyman and state Senator Ernie Adler told the crowd he wasn’t for impeachment originally but that the Trump pressure on Ukraine and Rudy Giuliani’s repeated efforts to get the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens pushed him, as a former prosecutor, to change his mind. He cited Trump’s “pattern or abuse of power” all the way back to urging Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

“He needs to be held accountable for his actions,” Adler said. “We need to stop him from violating the Constitution.”

The Carson City rally was one of what organizers said were some 600 such events nationwide involving thousands of participants held on the eve of Congress moving forward with articles of impeachment.

According to The Associated Press, Trump faces two articles of impeachment brought by Democrats. Democrats say he abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election and obstructed Congress by aggressively trying to block the House investigation from its oversight duties as part of the nation’s system of checks and balances.

The president “betrayed the Nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections,” says the 650-page report from the House Judiciary Committee. He withheld military aid from the ally as leverage, the report says, and ”Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”

The report says the president then engaged in an unprecedented attempt to block the investigation and “cover up” his misconduct. “In the history of the Republic, no President has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry,” it says.