Donald Trump’s Impeachment Now Supported By Over 100 House Democrats
More than 100 Democrats in the House of Representatives now support impeaching Donald Trump, Yahoo News reports — a number that has grown since last week’s testimony from former FBI special counsel Robert Mueller.
About a dozen House Democrats report that they’ve come on board with impeaching the 45th president, after having previously resisted the idea. One such Democrat is Katherine Clark of Massachusetts. She says that she wasn’t in favor of impeachment until she heard Mueller’s testimony. Now she’s convinced that Trump committed impeachable offenses.
“The moment that was pivotal for me was when [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell blocked a vote on an election security bill on the very same day that Robert Mueller warned us that Russia interfered in our elections, and that it is continuing to do so. It shows a disconnect, and a disregard for our democracy that we simply cannot turn away from,” she said.
Similarly, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire said that it was the Mueller testimony that changed his mind, as did Kim Schrier, Suzan DelBene, Derek Kilmer and Denny Heck, all of Washington.
Although the word “impeachment” has been used by some Democrats off and on throughout the Trump administration, actual efforts to impeach the president have gone nowhere. Texas Democrat Al Green has read articles of impeachment on the House floor three times, and three times the vote has failed — even in the Democrat-controlled House.
CONGRESS is coming to #13thDistrictStrong! @FSCDems Oversight Subcommittee w/ Chairman @RepAlGreen ??
Examining the Addressing the Housing Crisis in Michigan, 11 Years after the Recession on Fri, Aug 2 at noon at WCCC, 8200 W Outer Drive in #Detroit. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC pic.twitter.com/MQBHFrQCmJ
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) July 27, 2019
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for her part, has resisted efforts to impeach Trump for a couple of reasons. For one, she’s said that she believes Democrats should focus on their own agenda for the American people, rather than on impeachment. And second, she’s said that she wants all of the investigations into possible impeachable offenses by Trump — into which there are currently several ongoing investigations — to play out before seriously discussing it.
Similarly, New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has said that he believes Trump deserves to be impeached. However, he doesn’t want to move forward with impeachment until all of the evidence has been compiled and presented to the American people. Last week, Nadler indicated that he may be looking toward beginning the process, though he’s declined to give a timetable.
Even if Donald Trump is impeached in the House of Representatives, efforts to remove him from office would likely stall in the Republican-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority vote would be required to remove Trump from office.
