2nd Trump Impeachment: How Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick Voted

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents Bucks and a sliver of neighboring Montgomery County, voted Wednesday against impeaching President Donald Trump on a charge that he incited the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week.

The House voted 232-197 in favor, making Trump the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.

The historic House vote took place a week after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a siege that resulted in five deaths — including the beating death of a Capitol Police officer, multiple arrests and a sprawling FBI investigation. The impeachment comes a week before President-elect Joe Biden is to be inaugurated in a city on high alert amid ongoing threats of violence.

Fitzpatrick had condemned Trump's role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to President-elect Joe Biden, and in inciting last Wednesday's attack at the Capitol. On Tuesday, he sponsored a resolution that would publicly censure — but not impeach — Trump for those actions.

"President Trump's attempts to undermine the outcome of the 2020 election have been unconscionable," Fitzpatrick said in a news release announcing the resolution. "The combination of a false information campaign coupled with inflammatory rhetoric led to the devastation that I was a personal witness to on the House floor on Jan. 6. His actions threatened the integrity of our democracy, Congress and his own vice president.

"For months, President Trump has been lying to the American people with false information, and giving his supporters false expectations. The election is over."

But Fitzpatrick said in the release that forcing "a time-consuming and divisive trial in the Senate" over impeachment would be a distraction for President-elect Joe Biden and likely won't happen until he is already in office

Here’s how the rest of Pennsylvania's delegation voted on the impeachment:

• Brendan Boyle, Democrat, 2nd District: Yes.
• Dwight Evans, Democrat, 3rd District: Yes.
• Madeline Dean, Democrat, 4th District: Yes.
• Mary Gay Scanlon, Democrat, 5th District: Yes.
• Chrissy Houlahan, Democrat, 6th District: Yes.
• Susan Wild, Democrat, 7th District: Yes.
• Matt Cartwright, Democrat, 8th District: Yes.
• Dan Meuser, Republican, 9th District: No.
• Scott Perry, Republican, 10th District: No.
• Lloyd Smucker, Republican, 11th District: No.
• Fred Keller, Republican, 12th District: No.
• John Joyce, Republican, 13th District: No.
• Guy Reschenthaler, Republican, 14th District: No.
• Glenn Thompson, Republican, 15th District: No.
• Mike Kelly, Republican, 16th District: No.
• Conor Lamb, Democrat, 17th District: Yes.
• Mike Doyle, Democrat, 18th District: Yes.

The final House vote was 232-197 in favor of impeachment. Ten Republicans voted to impeach Trump.

What's Next: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will not allow the Senate to vote to convict Trump — which would have been an extraordinary turn by a Republican leader who has defended and protected Trump during the four years of his tumultuous presidency.

• If an impeachment trial is allowed in the Senate, it will be after Biden is inaugurated, McConnell said Wednesday. McConnell has reportedly said he believes Trump committed impeachable offenses, and that moving forward with a vote would make it easier for Republicans to purge Trumpism from their party, but clarified Wednesday he hasn’t made up his mind he won’t reconvene the Senate ahead of Biden’s inauguration. His staff said McConnell will defer to New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, who will become the new majority leader, to manage the process.
• Biden has suggested the Senate could “bifurcate” — that is spend half of the day confirming his Cabinet nominees and the other half on impeachment matters.
• Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking member of the House Republican leadership, is among more than two dozen Republicans who signaled they would break from their party and vote to impeach Trump. "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," she said in a statement Tuesday.

Trial In The Senate: Two-thirds of the chamber would have to vote to convict Trump. The Senate exonerated Trump last year on charges of abuse of power and contempt of Congress after special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but the charge against Trump this time is more clear-cut.

Under the Constitution, the Senate could prevent him from holding federal office again and strip him of other perks afforded to former presidents.

As lawmakers debated the need for and grave potential consequence of impeaching Trump for a second time, the FBI warned of armed protests in the days ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Statehouses in all 50 states have been targeted for protests, including Pennsylvania's.

The agency is also monitoring chatter on an encrypted messaging platform about plans by Trump extremists to form perimeters around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court building as Biden takes the oath of office.

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