Trump Or 'Our Oath': Massachusetts Lawmakers On Impeachment

WORCESTER, MA — Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern brought the debate over whether to impeach President Donald Trump back to his childhood in Worcester. During the 10-hour debate Wednesday before impeachment votes, McGovern remembered enthusiastically campaigning as a middle schooler in 1972 for South Dakota Senator George McGovern.

Richard Nixon would go on to win that 1972 race — and later face impeachment — but Jim McGovern said he would always prefer to lose an election than to win one with help from a foreign country. And that's why he cast "yes" votes Wednesday night to impeach Trump on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

"I will never be OK if other nations decide our leaders for us, and the president of the United States is rolling out the welcome mat for that kind of foreign interference," McGovern said.

"As stewards of the people’s power, each of us now faces a simple choice: protect the president, or uphold our oath," McGovern said later in a tweet.

All nine members of Congress from Massachusetts ultimately voted for impeachment. But all nine had different reasons for casting their historic and divisive votes. Here are the public statements each representative made before voting.

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, 1st District (Springfield, Pittsfield)

"Impeachment is reserved for moments of grave danger, when the constitutional order becomes dangerously out of balance. Moments like this one."

"And that is why I will cast my vote to impeach President Donald J. Trump," Neal wrote in a tweet.

U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, 3rd District (Lawrence, Lowell, Fitchburg)

"President Trump committed an impeachable act by abusing the power of his office for personal and political gain at the expense of our national security. When he got caught, he engaged in a second impeachable offense by launching a campaign to obstruct legitimate congressional oversight into the matter. Impeachment is not a fight we sought, but one we committed to when we raised our right hand and swore to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States. This is a sad day for our country, but President Trump left us no choice," Trahan said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, 4th District (Hopkinton, Newton, Milford, Brookline)

"In his attempts to bribe and extort a vulnerable ally, President Trump forced Congress to reckon with his reckless abuse of office. By withholding evidence, threatening witnesses and silencing accomplices, his obstruction only further defined a man who fundamentally believes laws do not apply to him. A failure to impeach him would not just be a failure of justice, but would give him and future presidents license to act with continued disregard for our nation’s laws," Kennedy said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark, 6th District (Framingham, Natick, Weston, Sudbury)

"The framers warned us that a president who is 'unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper ... despotic in his ordinary demeanor' would be the type of president that would necessitate impeachment to protect the democracy," Clark said in a statement posted on Twitter. "Donald John Trump is the embodiment of these fears."

U.S Rep. Ayanna Pressley, 7th District (Dorchester, Randolph, Cambridge)

"America is a story of ordinary people confronting abuses of power with the steadfast pursuit of justice. Throughout our history, the oppressed have been relegated to the margins by the powerful," Pressley wrote in a tweet. "And each time we have fought back."

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, 8th District (Braintree, Dedham, Quincy)

"It is ... beyond argument that the president has used the power of his office to conceal the evidence of his wrongdoing and further demanded that executive branch personnel refuse to cooperate in subsequent Congressional investigations in order to obstruct justice," Lynch said in a statement posted on Twitter. "The president's actions are of a character and nature that present a direct threat to American democracy while his actions throughout the process make clear that this pattern of behavior in a chief executive is likely to continue."

U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, 9th District (Plymouth, Provincetown, New Bedford)

"The United States is based on a principle that our second president, John Adams of Massachusetts, so eloquently summed up long ago: we are a 'government of laws, not of men.' No one, absolutely no one, stands above the law," Keating wrote in a Facebook post.

Congress voted on two separate articles of impeachment Wednesday night. The abuse of power article passed 230-197, and the obstruction of Congress article passed 229-198. Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden voted for the abuse of power article, but not for the second article. Two Democrats — Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota — voted "no" on both articles. Van Drew is planning to leave the Democratic Party, however. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voted "present" on each article.

An impeachment vote does not mean Trump is being removed from office. From here, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will send the articles to the U.S. Senate for a trial. As of Thursday morning, Pelosi had not sent the articles. Trump will then face a trial in the Senate, which he is expected to win because Republicans hold a majority there.