Scott Fitzgerald Has Very Bad Week

Scott Fitzgerald. Emily Hamer/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

Wisconsin’s newest Republican U.S. Representative Scott Fitzgerald may have set the record with the fastest violation of a Member of Congress’s swearing-in-oath.

It was after the rioters had occupied and trashed the Capitol, injured scores of police officers, endangered all members of Congress and left dead bodies behind that Fitzgerald voted to give Donald Trump and the rioters what they wanted, as Wisconsin Public Radio reported:

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, and U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, were among 121 House Republicans who voted to object to counting Biden’s electors from Arizona, a vote made possible by several Republican U.S. senators, including Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.

Tiffany and Fitzgerald were later among 138 Republicans who voted to object to Biden’s Pennsylvania electors.

Their votes came hours after the U.S. Capitol was cleared by law enforcement, and after lawmakers returned to the House and Senate chambers under heavy armed guard.

Yes, the challenges inspired by Johnson and the others in the Senate sedition caucus did fail, and all the electoral votes were counted just as they had been submitted, but by then Fitzgerald had violated his congressional oath,, including those parts about swearing and in good faith to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic (like election-subverting Senators and murderous Capitol invaders):

“I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

It was not long after officially joining the GOP’s US Capitol Insurrectionist Caucus that Fitzgerald declared that he wasn’t sure whether Trump was to blame for the Capitol riot:

“‘I don’t think we know yet,’ Fitzgerald said when asked at a virtual WisPolitics.com and Milwaukee Press Club event if Trump was to blame, as the Journal Times reported.

Fitzgerald called for an investigation of “who was involved and exactly what motivated them to get to where we were, which was a very, very frightening day.” Perhaps he’s expecting that Hunter Biden or sunspots were to blame for the fatal Capitol Hill riot.

“Fitzgerald was one of the Trump’s earliest and loudest advocates in Wisconsin before being elected to Congress in November,” as the Journal Times reported. “Fitzgerald, who estimated he has attended about a dozen Trump rallies, said he understands the feelings of the president’s supporters and that 99% of them are ‘very good people.’”

And of course he voted against Trump’s impeachment.

James Rowen, a former journalist and mayoral staffer in Milwaukee and Madison, writes a regular blog, The Political Environment.