New Donald Trump Impeachment Bid Coming Wednesday: Two Lawmakers Will Launch Boldest Move Yet To Remove Trump
In what may be the most forceful push yet for the impeachment of Donald Trump, two Democratic lawmakers say they plan to take to the floor of the United States House of Representatives on Wednesday morning, November 15, to introduce new articles of impeachment against Trump, bringing to four the number of Democratic House reps who have publicly signed on to an effort aimed at removing Trump from office, according to a report late Tuesday in the Washington D.C. online news site The Hill.
In August, Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen announced that he planned to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump, shortly after an “alt-right” demonstration in Charlottesville, South Carolina, in which a counter-protester was deliberately struck by a car and killed. After that incident, Trump refused to condemn the right-wing extremists who initiated the violent demonstration, saying only that “both sides” were responsible for the violence.
About three months after his initial announcement, Cohen says he will now bring articles of impeachment to the House floor on Wednesday. Cohen will be joined by Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez who earlier promised that the impeachment articles would “not leave you lacking for reason” to remove Trump from the Oval Office through the impeachment process. But neither Gutierrez nor Cohen would reveal in advance specifically what reasons they planned to give to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Cohen and Gutierrez, if they follow through with their reported plan, will add their voices to those of Texas Democrat Al Green and California Representative Brad Sherman, who have both called for Trump’s impeachment and have drawn up official articles for consideration by the House, to begin the impeachment debate. Last week, another Democrat, Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, also said that Trump had committed “significant constitutional impeachable violations.”
But whether Jaypal would be adding her sponsorship to the Cohen and Gutierrez impeachment articles appeared unlikely.
Green and Sherman have each stated their own reasons for impeaching Trump. Sherman filed his articles in July, becoming the first member of Congress to do so. Sherman’s articles of impeachment center on Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey in May, a move that Sherman believes was designed to obstruct justice by impeding the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
Green also filed articles in July, citing what he called Trump’s “demonstrable record of inciting white supremacy, sexism, bigotry, hatred, xenophobia, race-baiting and racism.”
While Gutierrez said that he has received no objections from the Democratic congressional leadership to his move to bring articles of impeachment against Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in earlier statements has stated her opposition to impeachment.
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez has also said that he does not support the impeachment of Trump — but a poll released by Public Policy Polling on October 31 showed broad public support for impeachment, with 49 percent of Americans, nearly half, saying that they would support the impeachment of Trump.
But another poll, released last week by Politico and Morning Consult found somewhat lower support for impeachment, with 40 percent — still a large number — saying that they would be in favor of beginning the process of removing Trump from office, and 49 percent saying they would oppose impeachment at the present time.
[Featured Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
