At this point, it’s hard to even imagine what the impeachment clause in the U.S. Constitution is meant to do. If Donald Trump isn’t the number one most likely candidate for impeachment to ever sit in the White House, who is?
Watch: Rep. Al Green ignores House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments that it's "not worth it" to impeach President Trump: "There will be another vote on impeachment." pic.twitter.com/Xz7mty3DWf
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 12, 2019
On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that she didn’t intend to bring a vote of impeachment up against President Trump because he simply is “not worth it,” and that she would wait for evidence of criminal conduct to consider the move. Some pundits insisted it was a strategy; if Republicans ignore actual evidence of impeachment after backing her Tuesday statements, they look like hypocrites. If they don’t back her statement, they’re admitting that they are unconcerned about a president committing crimes.
Other Democratic House members were furious. According to POLITICO, Green said:
‘This is not about the speaker. It wasn’t about the speaker before she became speaker, and it’s not about the speaker now…It’s not about any one person — it’s really not even about the president as much as it is about what he’s doing. It’s about his behavior that is harmful to society.’
“Democrats effectively checkmating Republicans in Congress by saying we will only move toward impeachment if there's evidence of criminal conduct….and practically daring the GOP to say they'd let crimes committed by the president slide…” – @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/C7il3xkhT2
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) March 12, 2019
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) plans to proceed with the vote regardless. Green’s past effort in 2018 to rally votes to impeach Trump fell far short of the 218 votes needed to impeach the president, but he believes that a fresh crop of Democrats that gave the left the majority in that chamber of Congress may help. He acknowledged, however, that other Democrats can stop him by changing the rules. That, however, would be a mistake.
‘That is an option and if that option is exercised, if the rules are changed, I won’t be able to go to the floor. I think it would be a sad day.’
Schiff: We've seen "deeply concerning evidence of the president's lack of fitness for office. The degree to which profound conflicts of interest may be guiding his foreign policy as well as evidence of criminality" via an "illegal campaign finance scheme." pic.twitter.com/n1f7nuyYP5
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 12, 2019
Green finds any insistence that the impeachment vote is a waste of time due to lack of support on the right to be a useless argument. Republicans are never going to back removing a GOP president, he says, and that has never been the point. The reason an impeachment vote needs to be called, he says, is because it is the responsibility of Congress to do so in the face of an unfit president.
‘If we wait on Republicans, who are not going to buy in, then there won’t be an impeachment,” he said, citing recent polling of Trump’s support among his party. “We should not wait on people who are not coming. That bipartisan ship has already gone to the bottom of the sea of sophistry…I am not angry with you, I am not upset with you, I just tell the truth about you. I not only speak truth to power, I speak the truth about power.’
Rep. Al Green, "I don't think we should allow an unfit president to remain in office.: https://t.co/mavmbMbZBC pic.twitter.com/mDE3rUcROc
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 12, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
