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Trump's Legacy: 2 Impeachments, An Insurrection, Countless Lies And Corruption

An image of President Donald Trump appears on video screens before his speech to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images))
An image of President Donald Trump appears on video screens before his speech to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images))

WASHINGTON ― One hundred and sixty years after the first Republican president was forced to put down a violent insurrection against the United States, the party’s 19th is leaving office after inciting one.

Donald Trump plans to leave the White House for the final time Wednesday morning, 78 days after becoming only the fourth incumbent to lose reelection in a century and seven days after becoming the first president to be impeached twice.

Democrat Joe Biden will take the oath of office at noon that day, becoming president and commander-in-chief of the United States, and leaving Trump suddenly vulnerable to both civil and criminal legal liabilities from which holding that office had shielded him for four years.

Trump is facing lawsuits from women accusing him of sexual misconduct, including rape; criminal investigations by both state and federal prosecutors in New York; a Senate impeachment trial that could bar him from holding federal office again; and potentially both civil and criminal exposure for his weekslong efforts to spark chaos at the U.S. Capitol in order to prevent Biden from being certified as the winner of the 2020 election. The Jan. 6 riot, which Trump egged on with a rally near the White House, quickly turned bloody and ended with the deaths of a Capitol Police officer and four Trump supporters. A second officer died by suicide days later.

“While Trump will not be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he will now be inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the only president anywhere to have been impeached for the second time,” said Michael Cohen, Trump’s onetime lawyer who served federal prison time for, in part, his work to pay hush money to women who’d had affairs with Trump. “Congratulations, Donald, and best of luck in your future endeavors.”

Trump’s first impeachment had come a year earlier, for trying to extort the new Ukrainian leader into publicly smearing Biden, whom Trump feared even in early 2019 as the...

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