Jaime Herrera Beutler will be one of the Republicans voting to impeach Donald Trump

In 2019, when the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives first act­ed to impeach Don­ald Trump, only Democ­rats and inde­pen­dents vot­ed to hold the cur­rent occu­pant of the Oval Office account­able for his high crimes and misdemeanors.

This time, impeach­ment will pass with bipar­ti­san sup­port. We still don’t know how many Repub­li­cans will vote to impeach. But we do know that at least one from our region will be among their num­ber, and that is Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, who rep­re­sents the 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, span­ning South­west Washington.

Here’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Her­rera Beut­ler’s state­ment on the mat­ter.

The Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States incit­ed a riot aim­ing to halt the peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er from one admin­is­tra­tion to the next. That riot led to five deaths. Peo­ple every­where watched in dis­be­lief as the cen­ter of Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy was assault­ed. The vio­lent mob blud­geoned to death a Capi­tol police offi­cer as they defaced sym­bols of our free­dom. These ter­ror­ists roamed the Capi­tol, hunt­ing the Vice Pres­i­dent and the Speak­er of the House.

Hours went by before the Pres­i­dent did any­thing mean­ing­ful to stop the attack. Instead, he and his lawyer were busy mak­ing calls to sen­a­tors who were still in lock­down, seek­ing their sup­port to fur­ther delay the Elec­toral Col­lege cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. House Repub­li­can Leader Kevin McCarthy describes plead­ing with the Pres­i­dent to go on tele­vi­sion and call for an end to the may­hem, to no avail.

The Pres­i­dent attacked Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence on Twit­ter while Pence was in a secure room hav­ing fled from the mob that had breached the Sen­ate floor threat­en­ing to hang him.

Final­ly, the Pres­i­dent released a pathet­ic denounce­ment of the vio­lence that also served as a wink and a nod to those who per­pe­trat­ed it: “I love you,” he said to them, “you are special.”

More hours of destruc­tion and vio­lence ensued before law enforce­ment offi­cials were final­ly able to clear the Capitol.

The Pres­i­den­t’s offens­es, in my read­ing of the Con­sti­tu­tion, were impeach­able based on the indis­putable evi­dence we already have. I under­stand the argu­ment that the best course is not to fur­ther inflame the coun­try or alien­ate Repub­li­can voters.

But I am also a Repub­li­can vot­er. I believe in our Con­sti­tu­tion, indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty, free mar­kets, char­i­ty, life, jus­tice, peace and this excep­tion­al coun­try. I see that my own par­ty will be best served when those among us choose truth. I believe Pres­i­dent Trump act­ed against his oath of office, so I will vote to impeach him.

Thank you, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Her­rera Beut­ler, for uphold­ing your oath this time around. Your loy­al­ty to the Con­sti­tu­tion will sure­ly incur the wrath of a large num­ber of rabid Don­ald Trump fol­low­ers, some of whom we imag­ine may ille­gal­ly threat­en you. We’re sor­ry for what­ev­er anx­i­ety and stress may come your way as a result of tak­ing this vote. But it is the right thing to do. We believe one day you’ll look back and regard this as one of the finest deci­sions you ever made.