Key Congressperson Announces Vote For Impeachment

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As the full House vote on formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump gets closer, Democrats are still the ones in Congress showing far more political courage than Republicans. Although there’s still not a single Republican who’s expected to vote in favor of impeachment in either the House or Senate, another swing district Democrat has now announced that they’ll be voting in favor of impeachment. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) — who won the seat in a race against a Republican incumbent in 2018 — made the announcement this week, explaining that based on the evidence she’s reviewed, she’s convinced that the president should be charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, as outlined in the articles.

Trump’s team has already singled out Democrats for criticism who are representing districts that only recently swung to their party, but Craig, who’s among an array of Dems from across the country representing such districts, seems undeterred.

She explained:

‘No elected leader is above the law. It is clear from the testimony and the report delivered to Congress that the President attempted to coerce a foreign government into investigating his political rival by withholding Congressionally-appropriated military assistance to a foreign ally. This is a clear abuse of power by a sitting U.S. President for his own personal gain. It is also clear that the President obstructed Congress by refusing to produce documents and blocking testimony during the impeachment inquiry, which is against the law.’

In a de facto rebuke to those who keep running with the baseless claim that Democrats are just pursuing impeachment over animosity towards the president, Craig added:

‘My values would require the same vote if this were a Democratic President. It is about protecting our democratic values, about right and wrong, and about upholding my oath to the Constitution and the rule of law.’

As she indicates, the president has been roundly implicated in a plot to get Ukraine to produce dirt on his Democratic rivals in exchange for military aid that had already been approved for delivery, no matter hyped up, seemingly imaginary concerns about ongoing corruption in Ukraine on the part of the president. In a record of a phone conversation that he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he never once mentions “corruption.” He just mentions the Bidens.

Documents covering the abrupt delay in military aid that corresponded with the Trump team’s push for Biden dirt are among the materials that Congressional investigators have subpoenaed from the White House and been refused access to. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) recently made his opening pitch to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for the procedures for the seemingly inevitable impeachment trial — Schumer’s proposal includes the summoning of high-profile witnesses who have refused to comply with Congressional subpoenas for testimony. Those witnesses include acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, and others.

Trump has consistently lashed out against the impeachment proceedings at what seems like every opportunity. This week, he even made the belligerent lie that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s teeth were falling out at a news conference. He’s got nothing substantive — at all.