Number of House members undecided on impeachment shrinks as vote nears

WASHINGTON — Nevada’s congressional delegation appeared to be falling in line with party leaders Monday as the House prepares for a historic vote this week on the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the number of vulnerable House Democrats from congressional districts carried by Trump in 2016, and who were undecided on impeachment, continued to shrink.

Rep. Susie Lee of Nevada, facing a Republican attack ad campaign, said last week that “after weighing all of the facts, I will be voting in support of impeachment of the president.”

Lee represents a congressional district that includes Henderson and was carried by Trump by 1 percentage point three years ago.

No Republican in the House has publicly said they would vote for impeachment, although several, like Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., are reviewing the charges.

Amodei said he would provide his “thoughts as soon as I’ve had a chance to thoroughly review.”

House Democratic leaders were confident that they had the votes to impeach the president on two counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, when the House acts on Wednesday.

It would be only the third time in history the House held a vote to impeach a sitting president.

All three Nevada Democrats, Dina Titus, Steven Horsford and Lee, said they plan to vote in support of the articles of impeachment following a three-month investigation and hearings into the president’s dealings with Ukraine.

Titus, who as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “I will vote for both.”

Horsford said he did not come to Washington to impeach a president, “but the evidence presented makes it clear that he abused the powers of the office.”

About 31 Democrats hold seats in congressional districts that Trump carried in the last election. Several came forward over the weekend to support the articles of impeachment. Rep. Elissa Slotkin used a town hall in Michigan to make her decision public.

Staffers for Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey resigned on Monday after it became known that Van Drew would switch parties, leaving the Democratic fold to join the GOP. Van Drew was one of two House Democrats who voted this year against rules for the impeachment process.

A new Fox News poll out Monday showed 50 percent of registered voters nationally favor impeachment, compared to 46 percent who oppose it. The margin of error was plus- or minus- 3 percentage points.

The articles of impeachment stem from a July 25 telephone call where Trump asked “a favor” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to announce investigations into political rival Joe Biden and a debunked theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 election.

Trump’s request was made as the administration withheld nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine to fight Russian separatists.

The House Judiciary Committee twice voted 23-17 to approve the articles of impeachment that charge the president with abusing his office to solicit a foreign government to meddle in the 2020 election, and then conducting a cover-up to interfere with a congressional investigation.

A 650-page report filed by Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., found that Trump’s misconduct demonstrated that he will “remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.”

The report includes several charges of felony crimes, including wire fraud and bribery.

Republicans have attacked Democrats for conducting a partisan scheme to overturn the last election.

Trump has called the impeachment inquiry “a hoax,” a “fraud” and a “witch hunt.”

He said so again Monday on Twitter: “The Impeachment Hoax is the greatest con job in the history of American politics!”

With passage of a bill containing the articles of impeachment a mere formality in the full House, Trump plans to spend Wednesday at a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan. Trump has used impeachment as a rallying cry for supporters he needs for re-election next November.

Trump said he was coordinating with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on how to conduct a trial in the Senate.

It would take 67 votes, or a two-thirds majority, to remove Trump from office — a threshold McConnell said is highly unlikely.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is challenging McConnell on rules of the trial.

Schumer wants to call as witnesses White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former national security adviser John Bolton and two other administration officials.

But Schumer would need to convince four Republicans to vote with Democrats to get the majority needed to call the witnesses.

Trump blocked Mulvaney and other officials from testifying in the House inquiry, citing executive privilege. Bolton was not subpoenaed but told House investigators he would not testify.

The president did order other officials not to obey subpoenas from the House.

In the Senate trial, the president has mentioned to GOP senators that he wants witnesses that include Hunter Biden, who served on a Ukrainian gas board of directors while his father was vice president. Trump also wants a whistleblower who first reported the phone call between the president and Zelenskiy to testify.

McConnell and Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., have told other Republican lawmakers that there is some consensus among GOP lawmakers to move quickly to a vote next year that would acquit the president and avoid a drawn-out circus scene in the Senate.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.