The US House of Representatives is rushing ahead towards impeaching Donald Trump for the deadly Capitol attack, taking time only to try to persuade his vice president to push him out first.
Already scheduled to leave office next week, Mr Trump is on the verge of becoming the only president in history to be impeached twice.
His incendiary rhetoric at a rally ahead of the Capitol uprising is now in the impeachment charge against him - to be taken up on Wednesday - even as the falsehoods he spread about election fraud are still being championed by some Republicans.
The House on Tuesday night approved a Democrat-led resolution urging Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Mr Trump with a cabinet vote, although the vice president had already said he would not do so.
The resolution, passed 223-205 almost entirely along party lines, urged him to "declare what is obvious to a horrified nation: That the president is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office".
Mr Pence had told House speaker Nancy Pelosi it would not be in the best interest of the nation and it was "time to unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate president-elect Joe Biden".
But five Republican legislators, including third-ranking House GOP leader Liz Cheney, announced they would vote to impeach on Wednesday, cleaving the Republican leadership and the party itself.
Some media reports suggest up to 20 Republicans will support the plan.
"The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack," said Ms Cheney in a statement. "There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."
A Capitol police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies.
Legislators had to scramble for safety and hide as rioters took control of the Capitol and delayed by hours the last step in finalising Joe Biden's victory.
Mr Trump showed no remorse on Tuesday, warning legislators off impeachment and suggesting it was the drive to oust him that was dividing the country.
"To continue on this path, I think it's causing tremendous danger to our country," he said.
In his first remarks to reporters since last week's violence, the outgoing president offered no condolences for those dead or injured, only saying: "I want no violence."
Mr Trump faces a single charge - "incitement of insurrection" - in the impeachment resolution after the most serious and deadly domestic incursion at the Capitol in the nation's history.
Republican representatives John Katko, Adam Kinzinger, Fred Upton and Jaime Herrera Beutler announced they would vote to impeach.
More ominously for a president clinging to his final week in office, the New York Times reported that influential Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks Mr Trump committed an impeachable offence and is glad Democrats are moving against him.
Though a handful of House Republicans will join the impeachment vote it is far from clear if there would then be the two-thirds vote needed to convict from the narrowly divided Senate.
How would a second impeachment unfold?
By Matthew Daly, Associated Press
What to watch as the Democratic-controlled House moves to impeach Mr Trump for the second time in 13 months, now with just days left in the defeated president's term.
Were there any alternatives to impeachment?
Before proceeding with impeachment, the House pressed Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to remove Mr Trump more quickly and surely, warning that he is a threat to democracy in the few remaining days of his presidency.
The House approved a resolution late on Tuesday calling on Mr Pence and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to declare the president unable to serve.
Mr Pence, who was among those forced to take shelter inside the Capitol complex during the attack, said before the vote that he would take no such action, leaving politicians with impeachment as their only option to remove Mr Trump from office before January 20, when President-elect Joe Biden is set to be sworn in as president.
What is the Democrats' case for impeachment?
Mr Trump faces a single charge, "incitement of insurrection", after the deadly Capitol riot in an impeachment resolution that the House will begin debating on Wednesday.
It is a stunning end for Mr Trump's presidency as Democrats and a growing number of Republicans declare he is unfit for office and could do more damage after inciting a mob that ransacked the Capitol.
"President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government," reads part of the four-page impeachment bill.
"He will remain a threat to national security, democracy and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said impeachment is needed despite the limited number of days left in Mr Trump's term.
"The president's threat to America is urgent, and so too will be our action," she said.
Mr Trump's actions were personal for Ms Pelosi and many other politicians.
She was among those forced to huddle in a bunker during the Capitol riots, and armed rioters menaced staffers with taunts of "Where's Nancy?"
How many Republicans will support the move?
Unlike the last time Mr Trump was impeached, when no House Republicans supported charges against Mr Trump over a call he made to Ukraine's new president, the current impeachment effort has drawn support from some Republicans.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and his deputy, Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise, are again expected to oppose impeachment, but Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, the third-ranked House Republican, said Tuesday she will support it.
Ms Cheney, whose father, Dick Cheney, served as vice president under George W. Bush, has been more critical of Mr Trump than other Republican leaders.
She said in a statement on Tuesday that Mr Trump "summoned" the mob that attacked the Capitol, "assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack".
She added: "Everything that followed was his doing" and noted that Mr Trump could have immediately intervened to stop his supporters from rioting but did not.
Representatives John Katko and Adam Kinzinger also said they would back impeachment, and some other Republicans seem likely to follow.
Mr McCarthy, one of Mr Trump's closest allies in Congress, echoed Mr Trump in declaring that "impeachment at this time would have the opposite effect of bringing our country together".
Will the house censure Mr Trump?
In a move short of impeachment, Mr McCarthy and other Republicans have floated the idea of a House censure of Mr Trump.
Although it was not clear how much support the proposal has, Mr McCarthy said censure or some other mechanism - such as a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack - would "ensure that the events of January 6 are rightfully denounced and prevented from occurring in the future".
Democrats, with the votes to impeach in hand, are not minded to support the move.
How will Mr Trump respond?
So far, Mr Trump has taken no responsibility for his part in fomenting the violent insurrection, despite his comments encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol and praising them while they were still carrying out the assault.
"People thought that what I said was totally appropriate," he said on Tuesday.
In the days leading up to the January 6 certification vote, Mr Trump encouraged his supporters to descend on Washington, DC, promising a "wild" rally in support of his baseless claims of election fraud, despite his own administration's findings to the contrary.
Speaking for more than an hour to a crowd assembled near the White House, Mr Trump encouraged supporters to "fight like hell" and suggested they march down to the Capitol to encourage Republican politicians to "step up" and overturn the will of voters to grant him another term in office.
He also said he would join them in marching on the Capitol, although he returned to the White House immediately after the speech and watched the riot on TV.
One significant difference from Mr Trump's first impeachment: He no longer has a Twitter feed to respond in real time.
Has security been increased at the Capitol?
In a sign of the increase tensions in the wake of the attack, House politicians will for the first time be required to go through a metal detector before being allowed to enter the chamber.
This new security measure will stay in effect every day the House is in session for the foreseeable future, according to a directive by Timothy Blodgett, the acting House sergeant-at-arms.
Mr Blodgett replaced the longtime sergeant-at-arms who resigned after widespread criticism about poor security planning for the January 6 certification vote.
Members of Congress have previously enjoyed nearly free roam at the Capitol, able to bypass security screening stations at most entrances to the building.
In the House chamber, there have been Capitol Police officers and civilian door monitors but no screening stations.
Mr Blodgett also told politicians they must wear masks during the Covid-19 crisis and that they face removal from the chamber if they fail to do so.
- Will politicians rein in emotions on the floor?
While debate on the House is often impassioned, emotions are expected to run unusually high as lawmakers debate impeachment.
Not only is it the second time they have voted on such a measure, the debate comes exactly one week after a majority of House Republicans objected to the certification of Mr Biden's victory, setting the stage for the hours-long siege that rocked the Capitol and the nation.
In the end, 121 House Republicans voted against Arizona's certification of Mr Biden's victory - and 138 Republican politicians opposed Pennsylvania's certification - even after the assault on the Capitol, an unprecedented break with tradition that has Democrats seething.
A recent breakout of Covid-19 among politicians who were held in lockdown with others who refused to wear masks has only heightened tensions.