10 House Republicans back impeachment
WASHINGTON» Ten Republicans — including Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House GOP leader — voted to impeach President Donald Trump Wednesday over the deadly insurrection at the Capitol. The GOP votes were in sharp contrast to the unanimous support for Trump among House Republicans when he was impeached by Democrats in December 2019.
Cheney, whose decision to buck Trump sparked an immediate backlash within the GOP, was the only member of her party’s leadership to support impeachment, which was opposed by 197 Republicans.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” said Cheney, whose father, Dick, served as vice president under George W. Bush.
The younger Cheney has been more critical of Trump than other GOP leaders, but her announcement hours before Wednesday’s vote nonetheless shook Congress.
Trump “summoned” the mob that attacked the Capitol, “assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney said, adding, “Everything that followed was his doing.”
Nine other House Republicans also supported impeachment: Reps. John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Fred Upton and Peter Meijer of Michigan, Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse of Washington state, Tom Rice of South Carolina and David Valadao of California.
Rice’s vote may have been the most surprising. His coastal district strongly backed Trump in the election, and he voted last week to object to certification of electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania. “I have backed this president through thick and thin for four years. I’ve campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But this utter failure is inexcusable,” Rice said in a statement after the vote.
Although he’s not sure if Trump’s Jan. 6 speech amounted to incitement of a riot, “any reasonable person could see the potential for violence,” Rice said.
“It is only by the grace of God and the blood of the Capitol Police that the death toll was not much, much higher.”
Katko, a former federal prosecutor who represents the Syracuse area, said allowing Trump “to incite this attack without consequence” would be “a direct threat to the future of our democracy.”
“By deliberately promoting baseless theories suggesting the election was somehow stolen, the president created a combustible environment of misinformation, disenfranchisement and division,” Katko said.
Upton, a former chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee who is in his 18th term representing the Kalamazoo area, said he would have preferred a bipartisan, formal censure rather than impeachment. But he said Trump’s refusal to take responsibility for the riot left him no choice.
Trump claimed Tuesday that his remarks at a rally just before the riot were “totally appropriate,” an assertion that Upton said “sends exactly the wrong signal to those of us who support the very core of our democratic principles and took a solemn oath to the Constitution.”
Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran who has emerged as a leading Trump critic, said he had no doubt that Trump “broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection. Trump “used his position in the executive” branch to attack the legislative branch, said Kinzinger, who is in his sixth term representing northern Illinois.
Herrera Beutler, in her sixth term representing southwestern Washington, said that although many lawmakers fear Trump, “truth sets us free from fear. My vote to impeach a sitting president is not a fear-based decision,” she said. “I am not choosing a side. I’m choosing truth.”
Newhouse said the Democratic-led articles of impeachment were flawed, but he would not use process as an excuse to vote no. “There is no excuse for President Trump’s actions,” said Newhouse, in his fifth term representing central Washington.
Meijer, a freshman who represents the Grand Rapids area, said Trump betrayed his oath of office and “bears responsibility for inciting the insurrection we suffered last week.”