The US is making plans to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office, sources say.

Donald Trump’s Cabinet secretaries are said to be discussing the move, after several politicians and public bodies claimed the president’s behaviour prior to the violence in the Capitol justifies his removal.

CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan said on air today: ‘This is not news we deliver lightly. I’m talking about actual members of the Cabinet.’

It is understood nothing formal has yet been presented to vice-president Mike Pence.

It comes after Pence yesterday confirmed his plans to defy president Trump and certify Joe Biden’s election win.

He sent a letter to members of the Congress saying it would be ‘antithetical’ to the ‘design’ of the US Constitution for him to overturn Biden’s win.

Pence has since been called upon to start the process of removing Trump from office.

The Democratic coalition said: ‘Donald Trump needs to be removed from office immediately.’

Democrat Representative Ted Lieu tweeted Pence saying: ‘You need to start the 25th Amendment. Donald Trump is detached from reality.’

And a National Association of Manufacturers spokesman said: ‘This is not law and order. This is chaos. It is mob rule. It is dangerous. This is sedition and should be treated as such.

‘The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy…

‘Vice President Pence, who was evacuated from the Capitol, should seriously consider working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to preserve democracy.’

The 25th Amendment of the US Constitution provides for a sitting president to be removed from office by his own team should he be deemed unfit for office.

It would require Pence and a majority of other senior White House staffers to agree Trump is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office’, and would see the vice-president take over.

Ratified in 1967, the amendment created a law for designating a head of state if the president dies, resigns or is unable to carry out duties.

The fourth section of the amendment, removing a president against his will if he is deemed unfit for office, has never been invoked, yet it has been repeatedly mentioned during Trump’s presidency.

Representatives are also in the process of beginning impeachment proceedings to try and remove Trump over Wednesday’s riots.

Joe Biden is due to be inaugurated on January 20 but Wednesday’s riots kicked off after president Trump appeared at a Save America protest to claim the election had been stolen from him.

It resulted in Trump supporter and air force veteran Ashli Babbit being killed amid the chaotic scenes in Washington DC.

She was shot by officers as the mob tried to break through a barricaded door in the Capitol where police were armed on the other side. She was hospitalised and later died.

Two men and a woman also died in the area around the Capitol, but police did not directly link their deaths to the violence.

Washington police chief Robert Contee told reporters: ‘Each of the three appeared to have suffered medical emergencies which resulted in their deaths.’

Several White House aides have quit, or are considering resigning, as a result of Trump’s part in inciting the unrest.

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