Republican Fred Upton says he’ll vote to impeach Trump

Longtime Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has joined a growing number of House Republicans in saying he plans to vote to impeach President Trump on Wednesday following a deadly riot by a mob of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol last week. 

“Today the President characterized his inflammatory rhetoric at last Wednesday’s rally as ‘totally appropriate,’ and he expressed no regrets for last week’s violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol,” Upton said in a statement Tuesday.

“This 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,” he said. “I would have preferred a bipartisan, formal censure rather than a drawn-out impeachment process. I fear this will now interfere with important legislative business and a new Biden Administration. But it is time to say: Enough is enough.”

Upton went on to say that Congress must hold 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,” his statement concludes.

House Democrats introduced an impeachment article against Trump on Monday that charged him with “willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States” after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol and clashed with law enforcement officials in riot that left at least five people dead last week.

He told his supporters ahead of the rally on Twitter weeks before to gather in the nation’s capitol as Congress was scheduled to certify votes by the Electoral College affirming President-elect Joe Biden won the race.

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” he tweeted on Dec. 19 as he continued to spread disputed claims about the November election.

He also repeated false claims about the race in comments to supporters outside the White House last week and told them to march to the Capitol. “If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said during the speech.

Trump hasn’t publicly acknowledged his role in last week’s riot. He also claimed on Tuesday that the remarks he made shortly before some of his supporters stormed the Capitol last week were “totally appropriate.”

“They’ve analyzed my speech and my words and my final paragraph, my final sentence, and everybody, to the T, thought it was totally appropriate,” Trump told the press.

Trump has been met with fierce blowback from both sides of the aisle in the aftermath of the riot, with a handful of Republicans leaders coming out in support of his second impeachment.

House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.), who serves as the lower chamber’s No. 3 Republican, on Tuesday became the first member of House GOP leadership to support the impeachment effort.

Cheney said in a statement that Trump had “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” adding: “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President.”

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) also announced plans to vote for Trump’s impeachment Tuesday, along with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).

Other Republicans have also indicated openness to the impeachment effort. Among those are newly sworn-in Rep. Peter Meijer, another Michigan Republican, who said on Monday that he’s “strongly considering” supporting the move.