Conaway Decries 'Unfair, Politically Motivated' Impeachment Resolution

WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. House of Representatives voted to send the impeachment case against President Donald J. Trump to the Senate. The House passed a resolution 228 to 193, largely along party lines, to send the articles over to the other body.

The House creates articles of impeachment, sends them to the Senate where Senators vote on whether to remove the president from office or acquit. In the Senate, before the impeachment vote, a trial will be held, likely next week, where U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presides.

This morning, the House voted on a resolution to appoint seven House Democrats as impeachment managers and to transmit two articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate.

Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota was the only Democrat to vote against the resolution. He previously voted against the impeachment articles last month. Former Republican who turned into an independent over the impeachment decision, Rep Justin Amash, voted for the resolution.

Otherwise, Republicans voted against the resolution and Democrats voted in favor.

Rep. Mike Conaway (TX-11) wasn’t pleased with the action in the House this morning.

“The vote to finally transmit the articles to the Senate is the conclusion of an unfair, politically-motivated impeachment process in the House. Democrats are treating this as a strategic game with the intent of damaging the President’s electability heading into 2020,” Conaway said in a prepared statement.

“Throughout the entire House investigation, Speaker Pelosi repeatedly cited the need for urgency, and yet she stalled the process for almost an entire month by refusing to send the articles to the Senate,” Conaway continued.

Conaway’s colleague on the House Committee on Intelligence, Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, was named one of the seven House managers who will act as prosecutors in the Senate trial expected next week. Conaway is no fan of Schiff. In a hearing previous to the impeachment hearings held in the House Intelligence Committee, Conaway asked Schiff to step down as chairman of the Committee because Conaway said Schiff was promoting false narratives about the committee’s year-long counterintelligence investigation into the Trump-Russia collusion accusations.

The House Intelligence Committee under Republican leadership prior to the Democratic Party’s takeover of the House in Jan. 2019 concluded there was no evidence of collusion between Trump and foreign governments.

Conaway said in May 2019 that Schiff’s continuing to promote false narratives about the president is an abuse of Schiff’s position of power as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. It is damaging the integrity of the committee, he said. “And it undermines the faith in the United States Government and its institutions.”

About Schiff this morning, Conaway added, “[House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s] decision to appoint Chairman Schiff, a man who has repeatedly misled and lied to the American people, as a lead manager for the trial exposes her partisan motivations. Their decision to use impeachment as a political weapon has forever weakened its constitutional significance.”

Schiff will join Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York, Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Reps. Zoe Lofgren of California, Val Demings of Florida, Sylvia Garcia of Texas and Jason Crow of Colorado to represent House Democrats.