Newhouse Explains Vote to Impeach

Congressman Dan Newhouse explained his reasoning Thursday behind his vote to impeach Donald Trump despite supporting the president's earlier attempts at investigating the 2020 election's results. President Trump was impeached by the House Wednesday on one article of impeachment for incitement of insurrection.

The 4th District Representative stated that the two decisions are not at odds with each other.

According to Newhouse, people were led to believe that Congress could throw out the results of the election and that the Vice President could unilaterally change the counting of Electoral College votes.

"Unfortunately none of that is true. It's unfortunate but I think probably today a lot of people still believe that we as Congress could have changed it." explained Newhouse, "The vote on the 6th of January, when there was a choice to accept or object, those objections lost. So here we are. We move forward as per the Constitution."

Newhouse pointed to December 14th as another important date in the post-election timeline. That was the day the Electoral College's electors met in each state and cast their vote for president and vice president. By not taking action and voicing an issue at that time, Newhouse stated that they effectively agreed that there is no problem. At that point, further chances at overturning the election results were slim.

The Sunnyside representative joined 125 fellow Republicans in early December in filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of a case filed by Texas that sought to invalidate presidential election results in four swing states. That case was thrown out by the Supreme Court as Texas lacked standing in the suit. Newhouse added that it would have helped if the Supreme Court had heard the Texas case, stating that, "when we have a legal question, we ask the courts."

Newhouse said Wednesday on the House floor that President Trump is responsible for misinforming and inflaming the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, tore down the American flag, and brutally beat Capitol police officers.