2nd Trump Impeachment: How The NJ Delegation Voted

NEW JERSEY — Congressional representatives from New Jersey voted mostly in agreement to impeach President Donald Trump on a charge that he incited the deadly insurrection at the US. Capitol last week. The House voted 232-197 in favor, making Trump the first president in United States history to be impeached twice.

The historic House vote took place a week after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a siege that resulted in five deaths — including the beating death of a Capitol Police officer who was a New Jersey native, multiple arrests and a sprawling FBI investigation. The impeachment comes a week before President-elect Joe Biden is to be inaugurated in a city on high alert amid ongoing threats of violence.

Here’s how the New Jersey delegation voted on the impeachment (click on their names to read their statements):

• 1st district: Donald Norcross (D): Yes
• 2nd district: Jeff Van Drew (R): No
• 3rd district: Andy Kim (D): Yes
• 4th district: Chris Smith (R) No
• 5th district: Josh Gottheimer (D): Yes
• 6th district: Frank Pallone (D) Yes
• 7th district: Tom Malinowski (D) Yes
• 8th district: Albio Sires (D) Yes
• 9th district: Bill Pascrell (D) Yes
• 10th district: Donald Payne Jr. (D) Yes
• 11th district: Mikie Sherrill (D) Yes
• 12th district: Bonnie Watson Coleman (D) Yes

"Trump must be held accountable for inciting a violent mob to attack the Capitol and prevent Congress from certifying the presidential election results. I have co-sponsored articles of impeachment to remove the President from office," Rep. Frank Pallone, D-Monmouth and Middlesex, a longtime Trump critic, tweeted Saturday.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic, who switched from Democrat to Republican last year, opposed impeachment for the second time. "Nearly half the country supports the president. This takes their vote away," he said.

Read More On Patch: The Latest On Impeachment As More Violence, Assassinations Threatened

Rep. Andy Kim, who represents New Jersey's 3rd District, which includes parts of Ocean and Burlington counties, said he will go home and "explain to my two boys why it was important to impeach the president.

"It's a conversation that parents across the country are having right now with their kids; explaining that when someone does something wrong and they violate their oath, there are consequences," he said. It's a conversation that reminds them that nobody, not even the president of the United States, is above the law."

The FBI has warned of armed protests in the days ahead of Biden’s inauguration in Capitol and statehouses in all 50 states. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is warning residents to stay home on Jan. 20 and avoid getting anywhere near possible protests in Trenton or elsewhere.

"Color us in the category of preparing for the worst and hoping for the best and erring in the side of overpreparing," Murphy said during his Wednesday news conference.

Col. Patrick J. Callahan, the superintendent of the State Police, said New Jersey and federal partners are "monitoring what we're hearing with regard to protests around the country and certainly in New Jersey." Read more: State, Local Police Brace For Possible Violence At NJ Capitol

The agency is also monitoring chatter on an encrypted messaging platform about plans by Trump extremists to form perimeters around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court building as Biden takes the oath of office.

What's Next?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will not allow the Senate to vote to convict Trump while the Republicans control the majority. The Democrats are set to take control of the Senate by the end of the month.

• If an impeachment trial is allowed in the Senate, it will be after Biden is inaugurated, McConnell said Wednesday. McConnell has reportedly said he believes Trump committed impeachable offenses, and that moving forward with a vote would make it easier for Republicans to purge Trumpism from their party, but he won’t reconvene the Senate ahead of Biden’s inauguration.

• Biden has suggested the Senate could “bifurcate” — that is spend half of the day confirming his Cabinet nominees and the other half on impeachment matters.

• Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranking member of the House Republican leadership, is among more than two dozen Republicans who signaled they would break from their party and vote to impeach Trump.

• "There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," she said in a statement Tuesday.

Trial In The Senate: Two-thirds of the chamber would have to vote to convict Trump. The Senate exonerated Trump last year on charges of abuse of power and contempt of Congress after special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, but the charge against Trump this time is more clear-cut.

Under the Constitution, the Senate could prevent him from holding federal office again and strip him of other perks afforded to former presidents.