Another freshman Democrat from a district that tilts Republican announced his support Thursday for initiating impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Illinois Rep. Sean Casten, in an interview with the Chicago Sun Times, explained that talking about "impeachment" was different from opening an "impeachment inquiry."
“An impeachment assumes that we will start the process, and you already know the outcome," Casten said. “An impeachment inquiry is saying we need to initiate the process of using every tool we have to get all those facts, of making them transparent, to doing it in a way that the public understands what we’re doing, understands the scope of what we’re doing, understands what we are, what we are learning and that we go into that with a completely open mind to know that at the end we will decide based on the facts." Casten added that lawmakers needed to "use every tool in our power" to get the facts to the American public.
Casten now joins two other freshman Democrats who won Republican-leaning seats in 2018 that have announced their support initiating an impeachment inquiry. While Casten hails from an R+2 district in Illinois, California Rep. Katie Porter represents an R+3 district, as does New Jersey Rep. Tom Malinowski.
The whip count in favor of an impeachment inquiry also got a boost Wednesday from longtime Pelosi ally Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who sits on the Democratic leadership team. “This is a personal decision on my part,” Schakowsky imparted in a video statement, adding that she thought the Democratic leadership had done a "good job."
“But instituting the impeachment inquiry will actually enable us to get more information, more documents,” said Schakowsky, who represents a D+18 district in the Chicago suburbs.