Illinois Valley Times

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) said in an interview Wednesday that he was "in total peace" with his decision to vote to impeach President Donald Trump. He was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to do so.

“Do I worry about my political future? Not really, because honestly, I never got into this to build some political empire,” Kinzinger said in an NBC interview, as reported by The Hill. “I did it to do the right thing and I am in total peace today that my vote was the right thing, and I actually think history will judge it that way.”

Kinzinger became the first lawmaker of the Republican party last week to call on exercising the 25th Amendment to withdraw President Trump from office. The call from Kinzinger came a day after pro-Trump protestors stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Kinzinger is a war veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to serve in the Air Force. He identified President Donald Trump as the common denominator of Jan. 6's insurrection.

"Here’s the truth. The president caused this. The president is unfit and the president is unwell. And the president now must relinquish control of the executive branch voluntarily or involuntarily," Kinzinger, a Republican said in a video message posted on Twitter.

The member of the GOP said that Trump “abdicated his duty” to protect members of the House, “inflamed passions” that fueled the insurrection and barely condemned the violence. Kinzinger called this a "wink and a nod" to his supporters. 

“All indications are that the president has become unmoored, not just from his duty, nor even his oath, but from reality itself,” Kinzinger said, as reported by The Hill. “It’s for this reason that I call for the vice president and members of the Cabinet to ensure the next few weeks are safe for the American people and that we have a sane captain the ship.”

To invoke the 25th Amendment, Section 4 allows for Vice President Mike Pence and the majority of cabinet members to vote on Pence taking over presidential duties for the remaining time left in President Trump's term. Pence released a statement yesterday that he opposed invoking the 25th Amendment, Reuters reported.

"It's time to invoke the 25th Amendment and to end this nightmare,” Kinzinger said.

Kinzinger made an appearance on MSNBC last week and explained that his decision to support the 25th Amendment came after waking up Thursday morning to several GOP colleagues spreading baseless conspiracy theories that left-wing protestors acted as Trump supporters and incited violence. 

“I think it's obvious that there are people that their own political survival demands that they create a different narrative to what happened yesterday, and creating a different narrative is going to lead to something like this happening again, or maybe worse,” Kinzinger said.