Pa. Rep. Conor Lamb says he’s a ‘yes’ on impeachment

With the House moving ahead with debate on two impeachment articles against President Donald Trump, one more Pennsylvania lawmaker is saying he’s a “yes” vote.

How Pa.’s members of Congress reacted to Trump impeachment articles

U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-17th District, said Thursday that he “[thinks] the articles were pretty carefully written and that they match the evidence that I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing,” Lamb said. “And so I intend to support both articles,” WESA-FM in Pittsburgh reports. The news was first broken by the Beaver County Times in Lamb’s home district.

ICYMI: Full story — ⁦@RepConorLamb⁩ says he will support articles of impeachment against President Trump https://t.co/wez0q6qHvH

— J.D. Prose Sr. (@jdprose) December 12, 2019

Lamb opposed impeachment articles in the wake of the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But in this case, the former federal prosecutor said “here the standard has been met by the evidence that we’ve all seen play out over the last couple of months.”

“Our main national security interest in eastern Europe is to oppose [Vladimir] Putin and the Russians,” Lamb added. And that was the motivation behind Congressional authorization of military aid to Ukraine, Lamb told the station.

“When we took that vote and we approved the weapons to be sent to Ukraine, then find out that the president stood in the way of that and then instead of opposing Putin, he was opposing Vice President [Joe] Biden, that for me is when it goes from using his office to him abusing his office,” Lamb told WESA-FM.

Pa. lawmakers show their cards ahead of impeachment vote

The House Judiciary Committee started debating impeachment articles on Wednesday in a rare evening session. That debate continued Thursday and a floor vote could come as soon as next week. Observers believe the majority-Democrat House will pass the articles on a party-line vote, while Trump will most likely not be convicted by the majority-Republican U.S. Senate.