Just 10 House Republicans vote to impeach Trump for violent insurrection

Donald Trump’s incitement of a deadly and violent insurrection is threatening to bring down the entire Republican Party, with major corporations blackballing Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn the Electoral College results and voter sentiment against the GOP on the rise.

But only 10 House Republicans voted to impeach Trump for his role in encouraging his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, with the rest excusing Trump’s behavior or slamming their Democratic colleagues and accusing them of stoking violence.

The vote to impeach was 232 to 197.

The 10 Republicans who voted to impeach were Liz Cheney (WY), Anthony Gonzalez (OH), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), John Katko (NY), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Peter Meijer (MI), Dan Newhouse (WA), Tom Rice (SC), Fred Upton (MI), and David Valadao (CA).

Cheney is now facing calls to resign as chair of the House Republican Conference — the third-highest leadership position — over her decision to impeach Trump.

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing,” Cheney said in a fiery statement announcing her decision to vote to impeach him. “None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop 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.”

Other Republicans announced their votes to impeach Trump after Cheney issued her statement.

“Turning a blind eye to this brutal assault on our Republic is not an option,” Newhouse said in a statement on Wednesday. “A vote against this impeachment is a vote to validate the unacceptable violence we witnessed in our nation’s capital. It is also a vote to condone President Trump’s inaction. He did not strongly condemn the attack nor did he call in reinforcements when our officers were overwhelmed. Our country needed a leader, and President Trump failed to fulfill his oath of office.”

But the vast majority of House Republicans stuck by Trump, blaming Democrats and “antifa” for the violence on Jan. 6 and refusing to shoulder any of the blame for the lies they told about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election that helped incite the mob of Trump supporters.

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado went so far as to blame Hollywood actors for the pro-Trump mob.

Republican lawmakers continue to support Trump despite the damage he has done to their party.

Trump is the first occupant of the White House since Herbert Hoover to cost his party control of the House, the Senate, and the White House after just one term.

He’s leaving office with an abysmal approval rating.

Polls place Trump’s approval rating in the low 30% range. Just 33% of voters approve of his job performance, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, the lowest approval rating the poll has ever recorded for him.

Polling also shows that voters directly blame Trump for the insurrection at the Capitol and want him to resign: The results of a Politico/Morning Consult tracking poll conducted between Jan. 8 and Jan. 11 found 55% of voters want Trump to resign before his term expires on Jan. 20 and put his approval rating at 34%.

But Republican members of the House still twisted themselves into knots to find an excuse to vote against impeachment, calling it “divisive” and saying it will only incite more violence.

Many Republicans apparently fear angering Trump’s base, with some even afraid for their safety.

Democrats in the House stayed the course.

“I did not come to Congress to impeach Donald Trump. But the Constitutional crimes by an out-of-control president, inspired by his hatred and the big lie that he told, cannot be ignored,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York said during the impeachment debate. “Donald Trump is a living, breathing impeachable offense. It is what it is.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.