Someone has evidently been boning up on the law. Yes, we mean you, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas). Green, who declared on PBS’s “Democracy Now!” in August that “the president does not have to commit a crime to be impeached,” has apparently since learned that presumption is not true.
Unfortunately, the congressman is still not ready for prime time, having implied on the House floor that he plans to bring articles of impeachment against President Trump on the grounds of bigotry. In the video of his remarks, which follows, he states:
Bigotry is real. And people have to deal with it. Because they do, I don’t think we should allow bigotry to go unnoticed as it emanates from the presidency. Because I don’t think so, I will make an announcement sometime next week, more than likely, as to whether or not … we will have additional articles of impeachment brought before the House.
Without question, reservation, or hesitation, we should NOT allow ourselves to get back to bigotry as usual. https://t.co/p9QSAhUP7U
— Congressman Al Green (@RepAlGreen) December 11, 2018
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Either Green knows something the rest of us don’t, or he is once again talking out of his head. Section 4 of Article Two is unambiguous in laying out the grounds for impeachment:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Unless Green is prepared to demonstrate that the framers regarded bigotry as a “high crime or misdemeanor,” he is wasting valuable government time on some frivolous notion.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Green’s shenanigans, this is not the dumbest, or at least the craziest, thing he has ever said. In 2013, during the government shutdown over, among other things, language to defund Obamacare or delay the individual mandate, Green threatened to “come back in the afterlife” and “haunt the Congress of the United States of America” if they replaced the health care law.
