Reps. Al Green of Texas and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan just provided Republicans with yet another iteration of their best defense for voting “no” on impeachment. A one-two punch by these Democrats on the House floor left little of the myth that it brings them no pleasure to impeach President Trump for the sole malfeasance he likely committed with Ukraine.
“If this president is allowed to thwart the efforts of Congress with a legitimate impeachment inquiry, the president will not only be above the law — he will be beyond justice,” said Green in a passionate reference to the second article of impeachment. There’s an obvious issue with his plea, namely that the “obstruction of Congress” charge is legal garbage. But worse is the messenger and his messaging.
Green first introduced articles of impeachment against Trump in 2017, for firing the execrable FBI Director James Comey. Green’s obsession with impeaching Trump has not relented at any time since. His official government website boasts of multiple floor speeches calling for impeachment. There’s no one crime that Green presumably cares about, as he admits. Rather, as he put it more than six months ago, “I’m concerned if we don’t impeach the president, he’ll get reelected.”
Trump was dumb enough to give Democrats a case against himself over abusing his power with respect to Ukraine. Yet, Green walked onto the floor today with a poster of a child falsely positioned by a Time magazine cover as a victim of family separation on the southern border. Well done.
Tlaib followed Green with an equally off-message speech shortly thereafter. “Looking away from these crimes against our country is not an option,” Tlaib began — well enough. But she quickly pivoted to proclaiming that she’s voting to impeach Trump for her sons, ignoring the issue of Ukraine entirely.
And it’s no wonder. This is the woman who declared on her first night as a member of the U.S. Congress declaring that she would “impeach the motherf—er,” more than half a year before anyone outside of the administration had any inkling that the Trump administration was withholding aid to Ukraine.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is right about one thing. Impeachment is about as sacred a process as our Constitution protects, and it ought to be treated with the utmost seriousness. The case against Trump does warrant it, and it’s a shame that Democrats haven’t treated it as such.
