GOP moderate refuses to defend Trump on Ukraine but won’t back impeachment

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Fitzpatrick spelled out his opposition to impeachment in a lengthy statement in which he called it “a constitutional nuclear option of last resort,” criticized the House probe as rushed and argued that it was “poisoned from the start” when Democratic leaders tapped the Intelligence Committee rather than law enforcement to investigate.

Sitting in his Washington office on Tuesday — his 46th birthday — Fitzpatrick said he doesn’t oppose impeachment because he finds Trump’s July 25 phone call in which he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help his reelection bid indefensible. But, like many of his Republicans colleagues, he opposes the process Democrats took to get there.

“I’ve just been very, very disappointed with how this has transpired because I haven’t reached the conclusion I have because I don’t view the allegation as serious, quite to the contrary,” Fitzpatrick said. “The reason I’m here now is because I thought it was such a serious allegation that was treated in such a fundamentally unserious manner.”