PA GOP Lashes Out At Pat Toomey Over Trump Impeachment Vote

PENNSYLVANIA — Just seven Republican senators voted to convict former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial over the weekend, and one of them, Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, is facing a backlash from party officials. It's the latest intrigue from a discordant party still seeking its identity after Trump's defeat and the fallout from the Jan. 6 riot.

The chairman of the Pennsylvania GOP, Lawrence Tabas, issued a statement following Trump's acquittal, condemning the impeachment.

"I share the disappointment of our grassroots leaders and volunteers over Senator Toomey's vote today," Tabas said. "This post-presidency impeachment proceeding was an unconstitutional theft of time and energy that did absolutely nothing to unify or help the American people."

Beyond these public riffs, the state Republican Party is also planning to meet and discuss whether to issue an official censure of Toomey, according to multiple media sources, including NBC Philadelphia and the Inquirer.

Out in western Pennsylvania, Washington County GOP chair Dave Ball took things a step further.

“We did not send him there to vote his conscience," Ball said on CBS. "We did not send him there to ‘do the right thing’ or whatever."

Longtime Trump ally Joe Gale, a Montgomery County commissioner, said Toomey was emblematic of "the swamp." Gale announced Tuesday he is running for governor, and his brother Sean Gale is running for Toomey's seat, which he will vacate in 2022.

"To continue advancing the Trump movement, we must remain committed to draining the swamp within the GOP, which is best accomplished by winning Republican primaries," Joe Gale said. "Based on his shameful track record of betraying President Trump and partnering with Democrats on gun-grabbing legislation, Pat Toomey is nothing more than a textbook RINO (Republican In Name Only) who has been an utter disappointment to conservative voters."

The response to Toomey is another indication that the schism caused by Trump within the Republican Party is a jagged, meandering, malleable border, rather than a fixed line. Republicans were near universal in their condemnation of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead, and many put that directly on Trump. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even said "there is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility."

But McConnell, like most Republicans, voted to acquit and, like most Republicans (including Toomey himself), supported Trump over Joe Biden last fall. It's clear that much of the party is unwilling to surrender clout with the MAGA base, while still seeking ways to walk the line with other voter groups publicly.

In casting his vote to convict, Toomey acknowledged that the Trump defense team "made several accurate observations" about bias against Trump among Democrats and the media.

"However, these facts do not make President Trump’s conduct in response to losing the 2020 election acceptable," Toomey said. "He began with dishonest, systematic attempts to convince supporters that he had won. ... As a result of President Trump’s actions, for the first time in American history, the transfer of presidential power was not peaceful. A lawless attempt to retain power by a president was one of the founders’ greatest fears motivating the inclusion of the impeachment authorities in the U.S. Constitution."