Two additional House Republicans have said they would support an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol last week that left five people dead.
Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) became the latest Republicans to support an article of impeachment that had already garnered at least 218 House Democrat cosponsors. The effort began to make inroads with Republicans when three GOP House members signaled their support for the effort when the article was unveiled on Monday.
“I understand the argument that the best course is not to further inflame the country or alienate Republican voters. But I am a Republican voter,” Herrera Beutler wrote. “I see that my own party will be best served when those among us choose truth,” she added.
— Jaime Herrera Beutler (@HerreraBeutler) January 13, 2021
Upton joined the fledgling group of his GOP colleagues in backing the effort on Tuesday, although noted that he would have preferred a bipartisan censure over the “drawn-out impeachment process.”
In a statement issued late Tuesday, the Michigan lawmaker rebuked President Trump for having “expressed no regrets” for the Capitol attack when he told reporters on Tuesday that he believed the rhetoric he used last week that encouraged his supporters to descend on the Capitol was “totally appropriate.”
“This sends exactly the wrong signal to those of us who support the very core of our democratic principles and took a solemn oath the the Constitution,” Upton wrote.
“I fear this will now interfere with important legislative business and a new Biden Administration. But it is time to say: Enough is enough,” he added.
The Congress must hold President Trump to account and send a clear message that our country cannot and will not tolerate any effort by any President to impede the peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next. Thus, I will vote to impeach. pic.twitter.com/NqxyoB4ncv
— Fred Upton #WearYourMask (@RepFredUpton) January 13, 2021
The growing GOP support for impeachment, was headed off by Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY), John Katko (R-NY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) who became the first House Republicans to announce they would back the effort earlier on Tuesday.
Herrera Beutler and Upton’s support comes as the House voted late Tuesday to officially call on Vice President Mike Pence to remove President Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment, in spite of Pence’s objections.
Kinzinger had voted with House Democrats on the resolution, after previously expressing support for Pence to invoke the 25th amendment to remove the “unmoored” Trump when he posted a video statement to Twitter on the day of the Capitol attack.
“Here’s the truth, the President caused this, the President is unfit, and the President is unwell, and the President must now relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily,” he said at the time.
