Rep. Green Again Pounds The Drum On Impeachment, And This Time A Majority Of Democrats March To The Beat

from the oath-honoring dept

This week Representative Al Green (Texas) filed another set of impeachment articles against Trump. They didn’t move forward; in fact, they failed an initial vote for Congress to decide to even think about moving them forward. But that impeachment didn’t move forward this time is not the story, because even though it didn’t, pursuing it was hardly for naught. It was, at minimum, an opportunity to get everyone on the record about whether they were in favor of pursuing impeachment against Trump. And the good news is that, importantly, and for the first time, a significant majority of Democrats went on record saying yes.

And at this stage that’s the result that matters. Because it’s a first step to build the momentum necessary so that someday all the Democrats, and even enough Republicans, will be able to get the impeachment effort over the finish line.

Of course, that day has not yet arrived. As it was there were 23 Democrats who still said no to impeachment. (Note: their “no” votes look like “yes” votes, but in this case “yes” meant “yes, let’s ignore these impeachment articles”). But it appears that number was originally going to be higher, suggesting that several “no” votes switched to “present” before the voting finished.

Voting “present,” as Democrat leadership declared it would, is, of course, a cowardly way of handling the question of whether impeachment should be pursued. After all, the oath every member of Congress took compels them to act to end Trump’s presidency as soon as possible. And the rationale that “leadership” cited for why they didn’t want to vote to move impeachment along was nonsense: no extensive investigations and hearings are necessary to chuck him out of office— Trump’s crimes are happening in plain sight. Impeachment can happen immediately, as soon as there are enough votes for it.

On the other hand, the fact that several “no” votes switched to “present” suggests Congress is starting to feel significant political pressure to finally get behind the impeachment effort. Also, voting “present” was a lot less destructive to the impeachment movement than a no vote would have been. So while the 47 “present voters” still chickened out on lending their support to the initiative, at least they didn’t try to sabotage it like so many Democrats had on an earlier occasion when Rep. Green had brought forth impeachment articles, when their “no” votes not only doomed the effort to fail but also kneecapped the overall impeachment movement, instead of letting it build momentum. Whereas this time the momentum survives. And with 140 Democrats now openly saying yes to the idea of impeaching Trump, it signals to those remaining hold-out Democrats, Republicans across the aisle, Senate colleagues, the public, and even Trump himself that comeuppance is at last coming.

And maybe even before the midterms, as exigency requires. Further impeachment articles therefore need to be brought forth again before too long, to keep pounding that drum until no one in Congress will be able to still to turn a deaf ear to the need to get Trump removal from office finally done.

But in the meantime there are two more sets of impeachment articles waiting in the wings, with Rep. Thanedar having drafted impeachment articles against Pete Hegseth and Rep. Stevens bringing them against RFK Jr.

There are so many members of the Trump Administration deserving of immediate ejection from their positions of trust. RFK Jr. and Hegseth aren’t even the only ones with body counts—Noem’s lawless goons and deportations have already caused deaths, as has Rubio’s unlawful closure of USAID, for instance—but RFK Jr. and Hegseth are a good place to start. RFK Jr. is responsible for the premature deaths of countless people due to his war on health science, and Hegseth for his war on everyone else. He’s not just destroyed the military readiness of our nation, leaked secrets to our adversaries, and squandered the nation’s military resources, human and otherwise, but he’s also doing murder and war crimes and making the rest of us accomplices to his atrocities.

With the impeachment articles against the two of them, Congress will now have a chance to clearly and boldly say, “Enough,” and start moving for their removal. And perhaps impeachment may even soon succeed, as RFK and Hegseth’s behavior has raised ire on both sides of the aisle. Impeaching either may not even be a political reach for Republicans, or at least trying to save them not worth the political capital. But even if Republican members of Congress continue to refuse to fulfill their own oversight responsibilities and support impeachment, by at least forcing the issue by filing these articles it forces everyone to make a public choice about whether or not they support removing them from office. Which means there can be a political price paid for that choice if any rep chooses wrong—as if the choice to fire someone like Hegseth or RFK Jr. is one that anyone is likely to regret.

But while their dismissal would be a good beginning to taking back our government from the incompetent monsters currently running it, and, on its own, help protect America from their further destruction, no impeachment of any Trump appointee itself solves the real problem, which is Trump himself. Everything he does endangers us, in such volume that it is simply not possible to address each threat one at a time. It is long past time to strike at the root of all the problems he and his cohorts have caused and evict him from the Oval Office. And while it will obviously take still more time to get there, it is good that Democrats have at last taken the first step.

Filed Under: al green, democrats, donald trump, impeachment