The four members of Virginia’s congressional delegation who voted last week to reject Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory this week are worried about dividing the country by voting for President Trump’s impeachment.
“Let us work together. Both President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden have called for a peaceful transition of power,” Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline said in a speech on the House floor Wednesday, ahead of voting against articles of impeachment ultimately passed by a bipartisan majority by a 232-197 vote.
Aha, that peaceful transition of power. We were headed toward that a week ago, when Congress convened for a pro forma vote to certify the 2020 presidential election.
The 2017 congressional certification took 34 minutes. The 2021 redux went 14 hours, but then, it was interrupted by a pro-Trump insurrection that left four dead, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, and sent members of Congress into hiding in safe rooms as the mob pillaged the Capitol for several hours.
This was all incited by weeks of public statements from the president claiming that the election had been stolen from him, and a speech ahead of the attack in which he implored thousands gathered in Washington to let their voices be heard as Congress convened.
“This is a sham impeachment proceeding one week before a peaceful transition of power, and ironically the culmination of a four-year effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election,” freshman Fifth District Republican Bob Good said in a statement issued Wednesday evening.
“It is a simple political action, intended to try to permanently tarnish the legacy of a highly successful president, and will only cause greater division in our country,” Good said.
The “highly successful president” was the first to fail in a re-election bid since George H.W. Bush in 1992, and just the second in the past 110 years.
Trump is also the first U.S. president to be impeached twice – and the first to incite a mob to try to overturn the results of a democratic election.
Ninth District Republican Morgan Griffith has not commented publicly on his vote on the articles of impeachment.
First District Republican Rob Wittman, calling Jan. 6, the day of the attack, “a day that will be remembered as one of the most shameful in our nation’s recent history,” nonetheless … weaseled out, trying to play both sides, in a time where playing both sides doesn’t pay in the end.
“My vote against impeachment in no way means I agree with the president’s actions and statements leading up to the storming and illegal entry of the Capitol building, but I believe impeaching the lame-duck president before the peaceful transition of power occurs will only further inflame emotions and further divide the nation,” Wittman said.
“Our focus now needs to be on unifying our nation and moving forward as one, and I believe impeachment does the opposite.”
This from a guy who voted last week to overturn the election.
Now he, and the others, are worried about dividing the nation.
And they think you’re dumb enough to believe them when they say that.
Story by Chris Graham
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