In the wake of a Trumpist mob storming the Capitol even as some congressional Republicans tried to overturn the results of the elections in several states from within the Capitol, some had hoped that enough of those Republicans would back down and allow the counting of electoral votes to conclude quickly. That is supposed to be a routine task, after all.

A brief roundup of news from today’s unprecedented and grimly historic day in this nation’s capital city.

• Trump began the day by threatening Vice President Mike Pence and Congress with demands that the election be overturned based on false claims of supposed “fraud.” Pence released a statement confirming that he had no unilateral ability to do so.

Impeachment, removal, indictment, prosecution, imprisonment: that should be the order of Donald Trump’s future. The problem is that at the moment Trump has his hand on the nearly unlimited power of the White House, which includes a military he might use to strike at anyone—with or without justification.

It was supposed to be a joint session of Congress for what was supposed to be the fairly perfunctory task of counting the electoral votes as certified by the states. The complication was supposed to be that some House and Senate Republicans were objecting to counting electoral votes from states Donald Trump wishes he hadn’t lost, which was supposed to take two hours of debate per state. 

That was bad enough.

Nearly 30 Democratic members of the House have expressed a desire to impeach Donald Trump a second time following his incitement Wednesday of an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers attempted to certify the results of the November presidential election. 

They are absolutely right. Trump is a direct threat to the sovereign.