WASHINGTON (SPECTRUM NEWS) — Two Wisconsin lawmakers are getting heat for their involvement in the ongoing impeachment inquiry after the House of Representatives passed a resolution on Thursday making it official.
The passage of a resolution establishing the rules for the inquiry happened nearly down party lines.
While no Republicans flipped, two Democrats voted against moving forward with several investigations into President Donald Trump.
Wisconsin’s delegation unsurprisingly followed suit, but the ‘yes’ vote from Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse ‘yes’ did raise a few eyebrows.
Wisconsin’s GOP party staged protests in October outside the congressman’s district office because he has been tight lipped on where he stood on the inquiry.
He explained his decision in a statement shortly after the vote.
“I firmly believe that impeachment should be the last resort, but as a co-equal branch of government, Congress has a constitutional obligation to investigate any misconduct—regardless of political party,” said Rep. Kind in a statement.
Republicans are blasting the vote however.
“The speaker should follow her own words on what bipartisan vote on that floor and in the sham that has been putting this country through this nightmare,” said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-House Leader.
Across the Capitol, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin showed support for House Democrats’ efforts to hold Trump accountable.
“At least five witnesses have corroborated the allegations of soliciting foreign interference and withholding security dollars because of that and now the American public needs to see it,” said Sen. Baldwin.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin however says Democrats are using these proceedings to sabotage the president.
But Democrats are concerned by his growing involvement with the Ukraine scandal after Sen. Johnson admitted he was tipped off by US envoy Gordon Sondland about concerning behavior from Trump during a private call with the president of Ukraine.
That led Johnson to confront Trump about it.
The senator said the president assured him there was no quid pro quo but Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee has called for him to testify before Congress.
Spectrum News 1 asked Sen. Johnson if he believes he’s too close to this saga and if he would be willing to testify as part of this impeachment inquiry.
“I’ve always said I’m happy to tell the truth,” said Sen. Johnson. “I’m involved in the Ukraine issue because I’m the chairman of the European Subcommittee of Foreign Relations. We also are involved in these investigations under my chairmanship of this committee. We have jurisdiction over federal records so we began our investigation under the Hillary Clinton email scandal which has kind of morphed because some of the same characters were involved with the FBI and now we’re seeing legitimate concerns and questions about misbehavior and potential corruption at the highest level of the FBI. So all of these issues kind of morph together and because of my responsibilities as the chairman of these committees, I acknowledge that I’ve got direct involvement in these.”
Sen. Johnson is brushing off those concerns but he’s now getting questions of if he should recuse himself from a Senate trial if the House votes on articles of impeachment.
The next steps in these proceedings will include open hearings where the public could soon hear from some of the Whit House officials who have already testified behind closed doors.