Newly elected Republican congressman Peter Meijer voted to impeach President Donald Trump, a member of his own party, because he said he felt like the president's role in the DC riot made him "rankly unfit" for the office.
And now the Iraq War veteran, 32, from suburban Grand Rapids, feels like his life is in danger.
After thousands of people stormed to the Capitol at an event Trump urged them to attend to overturn election results and declare him the winner -- despite not being chosen by voters -- Meijer said he sought out bought body armor. And he's changing up his routines, along with colleagues, to hopefully stay a step ahead of anyone planning violence against him.
"Many of us are altering our routines, working to get body armor, which is a reimbursable purchase that we can make. It's sad that we have to get to that point but our expectation is that someone may try to kill us," Meijer said last night on MSNBC.
He added that some GOP members of Congress are traveling with armed escorts. "There are 10 of us (Republicans) who voted for impeachment, and that puts a target on our backs both literally and figuratively," Meijer told The Detroit News.
"It’s something that I’m very mindful of. We're trying to downplay this, but there's escalating rhetoric. At the same time, where I come down is we need to press for accountability before we can truly heal these divisions."
Does living in fear of death make him regret his vote to impeach? Meijer answers with a blunt no.
"A commonly accepted definition of terrorism is attempts to achieve political objectives through violence," Meijer said. "At at the end of the day, if you make decisions because you're fearful of the consequences, not because it's the right thing to do for the country or in line with an oath of office, that's just a very sad place to get to."
He added to the News that his decision to impeach came in the moment he was hunkered down with fellow members of Congress, not knowing if people would live or die, and the president tweeted a video again lying about the election results and calling protesters "special."
Related
"That landed like a gut punch. That was a moment when we needed leadership, and when the one person who could have changed the tone and kind of reversed course on this sad chain of events failed to rise to the occasion," Meijer said.
As for the future, Meijer hopes to be appointed to a planned panel in the House of Representatives tasked with investigating what exactly happened leading up to, during and after 1/6/2021.