10 House Republicans join Democrats in voting to impeach Trump

Washington – Ten Republican members of the House, including one of its top leaders, joined Democrats in voting to impeach President Trump for inciting the deadly attack on Capitol Hill last week by a violent mob of his supporters.

The final vote was 232-197, with all 10 Republicans joining the 222 Democrats in voting in favor of the impeachment resolution.

The article of impeachment will then go to the Senate, where Mr. Trump will be tried. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said after the House vote that there was “simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could end before President-elect Biden take the oath next week “.

Mr. Trump is the first president to be impeached twice. When he was impeached in 2019 for his attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, no Republican in the House voted in favor of his impeachment. But this time 10 members of his own party determined his actions warranted impeachment.

Here are the Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump:

• Liz Cheney from Wyoming

• Anthony Gonzalez from Ohio

• Jaime Herrera Beutler from Washington

• John Katko from New York

• Adam Kinzinger from Illinois

• Peter Meijer from Michigan

• Dan Newhouse from Washington

• Tom Rice from South Carolina

• Fred Upton from Michigan

• David Valadao from California

Cheney, the third House Republican, said in a statement Tuesday that she would vote to impeach Mr. Trump after he whipped his supporters Wednesday at a rally not far from Capitol Hill.

“The President of the United States called this crowd, gathered the crowd and lit the flame of this attack. All that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president,” Cheney said, referring to the appearance of Mr. Trump. at a rally on January 6, when he told his supporters: “If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country.” She also criticized his repeated calls on Republican lawmakers to try to overturn the election.

“The president could have intervened immediately and forcefully to end the violence. He did not. 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, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, continued. “I will vote to remove the president.”

Congressman John Katko was the first Republican to say he would vote Tuesday to impeach Mr. Trump. Katko represents a Democratic-leaning district in upstate New York, and he has faced significant challenges in his last two elections.

“Allowing the President of the United States to incite this inconsequential attack is a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” Katko said in a statement reported by Syracuse.com. “For this reason, I cannot stand idly by. I will vote to remove this president.”

Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, announced in a Tuesday in a Tweeter, “I will vote for impeachment.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United States broke his oath and incited this insurgency. He used his position in the executive to attack the legislature … If these actions – the branch of Article II inciting a deadly insurgency against the branch of Article I – are not worthy of indictment, so what is an impenetrable offense? “

Last week Kinzinger also called on Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to remove the president from office.

Michigan Congressman Fred Upton announced his support for impeachment on Tuesday night. “I would have preferred a bipartite and formal censorship rather than a long process of impeachment,” he said in a statement. “But it’s time to say enough is enough.”

Upton said Congress must “send a clear message that our country cannot and will not tolerate any effort by a president to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.”

Newhouse said on Wednesday he would support impeachment.

“There is no excuse for President Trump’s actions,” Newhouse said in a speech to the House, adding that he would vote for impeachment “with a heavy heart.” Democrats applauded after his speech.

The majority of the House Republican Conference – including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise – voted to overturn the electoral college results last week.

Six Republican lawmakers introduced a resolution to censor Mr. Trump on Tuesday night. Unlike impeachment, censorship has no practical consequences, but would only have been a formal condemnation.

In the Senate, a few senators have also signaled that they may be willing to consider voting to convict Mr. Trump, despite the bar being higher in the upper chamber. While it takes a simple majority to remove the president in the House, two-thirds of senators must vote for the president’s conviction and impeachment.