Rep. Al Green (D-TX) has announced that he will bring a privileged resolution for the impeachment of President Trump to the House floor during the first week of December.
“Next week, there will be a vote to impeach” said Green as he addressed the House of Representatives on November 30.
Republicans will probably try to table the resolution, but that could require the support of establishment GOP congressmen who have abandoned their party on such matters as repeal of ObamaCare and tax reform.
It can hardly be a coincidence that Green announced his move on the same day that left-wing journalist Ezra Klein published his column arguing that a President can be impeached simply because a majority of the House believes that it would have been better if Hillary Clinton had been elected last year.
“But what if Trump isn’t a criminal or mentally incompetent? What if he’s exactly the same man we saw in the election and that man just shouldn’t be president? What if America simply made a mistake?” writes Klein.
Recognizing the difficulty of proving that President Trump has committed anything that the Constitution would define as an impeachable offense (“Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”), Klein goes on to insist that the American elite have a duty to overturn the 2016 election when the voters are so foolish as to elect someone the elite considers unfit.
He claims that impeachment should be regarded as something akin to the vote of no confidence found in parliamentary systems, and should be used to remove a president who is simply “wrong for the role”.
(Klein betrays his breathtaking ignorance of American history and the Constitution by comparing the presidency of 2017 with “the presidency of 1776” – despite the fact the Presidency was created by the Constitution and there was no President of the United States until Washington took the oath in April 1789.)
The Green impeachment resolution follows the Klein model, declaring Trump to be “unfit to be President” without finding him guilty of any constitutional offenses. Instead, Green’s diatribe of a resolution accuses Trump of such “crimes” as “inciting white supremacy, sexism, bigotry, hatred, xenophobia, race-baiting, and racism”.
Perhaps the most amusing part of Green’s resolution is in Article II when he says Trump “has not made one widely published statement condemning the hate groups”. According to Green, if the media ignores a President’s statements instead of making them “widely published”, the President is the guilty party!
Republicans should be able to stop the Green resolution by tabling it, but establishment Republicans will be under heavy pressure to join with the Democrats.
Do not assume your Congressman will vote to protect President Trump from this silly, unconstitutional resolution. Call your Congressman and demand that he vote against it.
You can reach your Congressman by calling the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121.
Be sure to call today. The “privileged resolution” procedure being used by Rep. Green requires a vote within two days, so there is no time to waste.
