Rep. Herrera Beutler earns all Washingtonians’ respect for role in Trump impeachment
U.S Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler has faced much tougher challenges than this.
The national attention that’s zeroed in on the Washington state Republican like a laser beam, after she reiterated damning information about Donald Trump in the climactic hours of his Senate impeachment trial, is nothing compared to fighting to save her baby girl from a near-fatal condition.
Even so, the 10-year congresswoman earned a footnote in the history books for shedding light on what Trump said and did during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots — or rather, what he didn’t do: Promptly tell his mob to stop.
Herrera Beutler’s consistency in calling out the dishonorable behavior of her party’s figurehead stands in stark contrast to the selective outrage of her GOP colleagues.
She deserves the respect of all Evergreen State residents, from her politically purple home base in Southwest Washington to the deep blue Puget Sound region, for the integrity and courage she exemplified throughout the whole sordid affair.
It culminated with her statement Friday saying she could verify details of a phone call between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy while insurrectionists were raging through the Capitol. “‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump blithely told McCarthy, which the caucus leader later shared with Herrera Beutler.
She’s a refreshing alternative to the worst elements of House Republicans: in particular, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Greene, an unabashed Trump ring kisser and conspiracy theorist, ripped Herrera Beutler for “yapping to the press and throwing @GOPleader under the bus.” Greene’s tweet ends menacingly: “The Trump loyal 75 million are watching.”
It’s bad enough that Herrera Beutler must deal with ugly threats from within her own party. It also must be frustrating that her report of the Trump-McCarthy conversation was treated like an eleventh-hour bombshell — thrown by a hero or a saboteur, depending on your perspective — when in fact she’d been talking about it for weeks.
She mentioned it Jan. 12, when she joined nine other House Republicans in voting to bring articles of impeachment against Trump. She discussed it further with news media in Southwest Washington, with constituents and Republican officials, and at a Feb. 8 telephone town hall.
What was different Friday was the urgency of her statement; she pleaded with fellow public officials who were in the vicinity of a Trump phone call on Jan. 6: “If you have something to add here, now would be the time.”
McCarthy and other Republicans should be embarrassed for leaving Herrera Beutler dangling, neither supporting nor refuting her report. And Democrat impeachment managers dropped the ball by either overlooking or undervaluing her information until Friday; this led to a messy scene Saturday when Democrats wrangled over whether to call witnesses. They ultimately took a sworn statement from Herrera Beutler, and the trial concluded with an inevitable Trump acquittal.
Now America will try to move on from the train wreck of the Trump administration, and so will 42-year-old Herrera Beutler.
Until this year, she might have been best known as a supermom — the ninth woman in US history to give birth while serving in Congress. Her first child, Abigail, was born three months premature in 2013 without kidneys, a rare condition called Potter’s Syndrome that not long ago was a death sentence. Abigail received a kidney from her father and is doing well today.
The couple’s third child, born in 2019, is daughter Isana, a German name that means “strong willed.”
Like mother, like daughter.
With a moderate reputation befitting her district, Herrera Beutler has partnered on legislation with South Sound Democrats. She and Gig Harbor Rep. Derek Kilmer worked together to streamline COVID-19 loan access for small businesses, while she and former Olympia Rep. Denny Heck teamed up to reduce affordable housing barriers.
Here’s hoping that Herrera Beutler continues to cross the aisle, especially while her party flounders in disarray and struggles to define itself outside the long shadow of Trump.
This story was originally published February 15, 2021 at 1:30 PM.