Washington – US Congressman John Katko said today that he will vote for President Donald Trump’s impeachment for inciting a riot last week at the U.S. Capitol.
Katko, R-Camillus, is the first House Republican to recognize that he will join at least 218 House Democrats who signed an impeachment resolution. A vote is expected on Wednesday, a week before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
Katko said he felt compelled to keep his term oath and defend Trump’s impeachment constitution.
“Allowing the President of the United States to incite this attack without consequences is a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” said Katko in a statement. “For that reason, I cannot sit without acting. I will vote for this president’s impeachment. “
Congressman Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, is the only other member of the Republican Party House who has signaled that he would support an effort to remove Trump from office. But he did not say specifically that he would vote for impeachment.
Representative Liz Cheney, the House’s third Republican, told Republican Party members in a conference call on Monday that her impeachment decision is a “vote of conscience” and not a political vote, the Associated Press reported.
No other House Republican in New York State has said it will break with the Republican Party to accuse Trump of “inciting insurrection”.
Katko said that, as a former federal prosecutor, he addressed the issue of impeachment by reviewing the facts of what happened last week.
“It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection – both on social media before January 6 and in his speech that day,” said Katko. “By deliberately promoting unfounded theories suggesting that the election was somehow stolen, the president created a fuel environment for disinformation, disenfranchisement and division. When this manifested itself in violent acts on January 6, he refused to cancel promptly and forcefully, putting countless lives in danger. “
Katko was among hundreds of members of Congress locked in the Capitol for hours on Wednesday, waiting for protesters to be expelled from the building and Trump to expel his supporters.
The House’s impeachment resolution aims to remove Trump from the presidency and prevent him from re-occupying an elected federal office.
Katko, who co-chairs Tuesday’s Group’s moderate Republican caucus, is expected to be among less than a dozen Republicans in the House to break the position in Wednesday’s vote.
Representative Tom Reed, R-Corning, said today that he will support a bill to censor Trump and an effort to ban him from federal positions in the future. But Reed said the impeachment is a very big step and could “further fan the flames of the division” without doing anything.
For Katko, his decision to support impeachment limits a quick reversal of his support for Trump since the attack on the Capitol.
Katko endorsed Trump in the 2020 presidential election. He joined a unanimous Republican conference in the House in a vote against the president’s impeachment in December 2019.
After a furious crowd of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol last week, Katko said the president had lost his support. The violence left one Capitol police officer and four protesters dead.
“If I had known at that time what I saw yesterday, I clearly would not have supported him and I cannot support him in the future,” said Katko on Thursday when asked about Trump. “Retrospective is 20-20.”
Even before the attack on the Capitol, Katko scolded the president for making baseless claims about widespread electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Electoral for Biden.
Trump, in remarks to reporters today, criticized the attempt to challenge him for the second time in 13 months.
Trump said the impeachment resolution is “a continuation of the biggest witch hunt in the history of politics”. He asked “no violence”, but said “this impeachment is causing huge anger”
Before voting on the impeachment resolution on Wednesday, House Democrats plan to vote tonight on a move that formally asks Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from his duties.
Katko said he plans to vote against the resolution tonight.
“Vice President Pence has made it clear that he will not do this and believes that elected representatives should be charged with this effort, not acting and remaining members of the cabinet,” said Katko. “Consequently, I will not support this effort.”
Any impeachment trial in the Senate is unlikely to begin until January 19, when senators are due to return to Washington, according to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, a Democratic leader, said he could try to use emergency powers to anticipate the start of the trial.
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