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Elected Republicans On Trump's Re-election Team React To Impeachment Announcement

By Karen Kasler

Published September 25, 2019 at 6:59 PM EDT

Gov. Mike DeWine (then Ohio Attorney General) and U.S. Sen. Rob Portman were on the floor of the 2016 Republican National Convention, during which Donald Trump got the party's nomination for president. [Karen Kasler] — Gov. Mike DeWine (then Ohio Attorney General) and U.S. Sen. Rob Portman were on the floor of the 2016 Republican National Convention, during which Donald Trump got the party's nomination for president.

Nearly every Republican elected statewide in Ohio is an honorary chair of President Trump’s re-election team, including Gov. Mike DeWine and U.S. Sen. Rob Portman.

And they're being asked about their reactions to the official impeachment inquiry opened by the U.S. House.

Mike DeWine was a U.S. Senator during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1999, and presided over Monica Lewinsky’s deposition. Though DeWine voted guilty on both charges, he said he didn’t make that call until the case was presented. And that’s the way he said he's approaching things now.

“ That was my positionwhen I was in the United States Senate. I said look at the evidence, look at all the evidence, we have to wait till all the evidence is in. So I’m just not going to comment on this," DeWine said.

Sen. Rob Portman voted for Clinton’s impeachment when he was in the House in 1998, citing serious wrongdoing and evidence of lying under oath.

But Portman said this inquiry “will distract Congress from the bipartisan legislative work we should be doing to find solutions and deliver results.”

Ohio's 12 Republican members of Congress are also Trump re-election honorary state chairs. Many of them responded to the impeachment inquiry announcement on Twitter. Here's a roundup of their tweets:

Rep. Steve Chabot Democrats "want to divide America with their obsessive push for impeachment."
Rep. Jim Jordan: "This was never about Russian collusion or Ukrainian prosecutions. It is all about undoing the 2016 election and the will of the American people."
Rep. Bob Gibbs: "It’s clear the extremists of the Democratic Party are driving an agenda of obstruction and will grasp at anything."
Rep. Bill Johnson: "It’s another dead end. The Left is looking for something, anything, to justify impeachment…and this cynical political move will be a nonstarter with the majority of the American people."
Rep. Warren Davidson: "Pelosi has moved even further to the left... The far left takeover of the DNC is essentially complete. There are plenty of traditional Democrats, but they are either powerless or idle in the face of far left insurgents."
Rep. Bob Latta: "Democrats have been talking about impeaching [Trump]since the day after the election. This isn’t about accountability or working on behalf of the American people--this is about their candidate not winning in 2016."