[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 196 (Friday, December 1, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H9593-H9596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       REASONS WHY PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP SHOULD BE IMPEACHED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bucshon). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the leadership for this 
opportunity. I greatly appreciate any opportunity to stand here in the 
well of the Congress of the United States of America.
  I rise today, Mr. Speaker, because I do love my country. I rise 
because I want persons to know that there are certain things that are 
not being presented properly, and one of the things that is not being 
presented properly as it relates to impeachment is the notion that a 
President has to commit a crime to be impeached. I would like to talk 
about this for a moment and then address some of the issues associated 
with impeachment.

[[Page H9594]]

  A President doesn't have to commit a crime to be impeached. Article 
II, section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America is 
where we find information, if you will, on impeachment. It is stated in 
Article II, section 4 that a President can be impeached for treason, 
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
  Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that a misdemeanor is defined as 
a misdeed. There is a definition associated with criminology, but when 
the Framers of the Constitution decided that impeachment would be a 
remedy for a President who might be styled a runaway President, they 
decided that ``misdemeanor'' would mean misdeed.
  In fact, we have had a President impeached for a misdeed. Andrew 
Johnson, in 1868, President, was impeached for the high misdemeanor, 
misdeed, if you will, of saying things that were unkind about Congress.
  He committed no crime. He breached no statute. He spoke ill will of 
Congress, and as such, he was impeached in article X of the Articles of 
Impeachment that were placed against him.
  I would like to share some intelligence from some others who have 
spoken on this issue.
  Gene Healy has spoken on the issue. He is with the Cato Institute, 
and his article is styled ``The Overcriminalization of Impeachment.'' 
In this article, he states explicitly, on the second page, for whose 
who might have a copy of it--I have filed this with the House 
previously--``Impeachable offenses aren't limited to crimes.'' He 
indicates that that is settled quite well among constitutional 
scholars.
  He also goes on to say: ``Had the Framers restricted impeachment to 
statutory offenses, they'd have rendered the power a `nullity' from the 
start.''
  In the early Republic, there were very few crimes, and certainly not 
enough to cover the range of misdeeds--important word, ``misdeeds''--
that would rightly disqualify public officials from continued service--
misdeeds, misdemeanors.

                              {time}  1245

  He goes on to say that it is important to get this straight because 
confusing impeachment with a criminal process can be harmful to our 
political health. It may lead us to stretch criminal law to get the 
President or his associates warping its future applications to ordinary 
citizens.
  It is important that we get this straight because a crime, obviously, 
can be an impeachable offense, but it can also be something that a 
person is not impeached for, a President is not impeached for, 
depending upon the severity, I suppose. But a President can also be 
impeached for the misdeeds committed while in office.
  One of the things that Mr. Healy addresses that I would like to point 
out that is important as it relates to why we have this belief that a 
President must be impeached for a crime is this: unfortunately, we have 
outsourced the investigative function associated with impeachment to 
some other body, to some independent agency, to the Justice Department, 
if you will. In so doing, we have given the impression that this is 
something that involves a crime.
  But the Framers of the Constitution thought long and hard about this, 
and they saw that there could be the appearance of impropriety, if we 
allowed the executive branch to investigate itself in the sense that 
the Justice Department is a part of the executive branch.
  So do you really want the executive branch investigating the 
President, who is the chief executive officer?
  There are times, such as what we have now, when you have the 
executive outsourcing the actual investigation to a third party. And my 
suspicion is that this can work quite well, but we should not conclude 
that because it is working, that because there is some functionality 
that seems to be positive for some, negative for others, that because 
it appears to be working that this is the only way that it can be done.
  We shouldn't conclude that at the end of an investigation, if there 
is no finding of criminality, that an impeachment cannot go forward. 
Because notwithstanding the findings of a special investigator, or a 
special body that is assigned the task of investigating, we should not 
conclude that if there is not a finding of criminality that we cannot 
go forward with an impeachment.
  As a matter of fact, we can go forward with an impeachment while a 
body is performing this function, while a body is investigating. We can 
go forward before there is an investigation by a body. We can go 
forward after there is an investigation.
  The House of Representatives is the place where impeachment takes 
place. Any Member of the House of Representatives can bring Articles of 
Impeachment, and these Articles of Impeachment will have to be brought 
before the entirety of the House of Representatives. Impeachment is not 
limited to crimes committed, and a Member can bring Articles of 
Impeachment based upon the harm that a President is imposing upon 
society by virtue of the President's acts, behavior, or misdeeds, if 
you will. The President can be impeached without committing a crime.
  I had the good fortune of being on a program with Chris Hayes last 
night. He is the host. He mentioned an article that is written by Ezra 
Klein. It is styled, ``The case for normalizing impeachment. Impeaching 
an unfit President has consequences. But leaving one in office could be 
worse.''
  In this article that he has written, on the very last page he 
indicates that--by the way, I would commend this to persons to read in 
its entirety, but I am, for need of time, going to limit myself to 
excerpts. He indicates that: ``Impeachment is not a power we should 
take lightly; nor is it one we should treat as too explosive. There 
will be Presidents who are neither criminals, nor mental incompetents 
but who are wrong for the role, who pose a danger to the country and 
the world.''
  This is true. It can happen. I will say more about the possibilities 
in just a moment. Then there is the article from The Times, a U.K. 
newspaper, that I would commend to persons, and it indicates that ``MPs 
accuse Donald Trump of `spreading evil' over Britain First retweets.''
  This is an article that I highly commend because it speaks of how 
things can extend beyond our borders that start within our borders. I 
will read some of the excerpts.
  It reads: ``The Prime Minister said that Britain First, whose Twitter 
post the President retweeted, was a `hateful organization' that `seeks 
to spread division and mistrust among communities.'
  ``She said the group stood in opposition to Britain, British values 
of respect, tolerance, and decency, and stressed that British Muslims 
were `peaceful, law-abiding people who have themselves been victims of 
attack, of terror by the far right.' ''
  She went on to indicate, serving notice to Mr. Trump, that she would 
not shy away from tackling him if she thought these actions--excuse 
me--if she thought his actions misguided. She said: ``The fact that we 
work together does not mean that we are afraid to say when we think the 
United States has got it wrong. And to be very clear with them, I am 
very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to 
do.''
  We have been criticized greatly for the retweet that was inaccurate, 
a retweet that, quite frankly, could have been vetted. When you are the 
President of the United States of America, you have access to 
intelligence about things happening around the world. You can validate, 
you can verify, you can vet things that are presented to you. The 
President has access to the greatest intelligence operation in the 
world and could easily vet before tweeting.
  The information that was retweeted was not entirely correct, and it 
was hateful. It was designed to incite hate and it should not be the 
kind of thing that a President should retweet.
  I would like to also read the style of an article from Foreign 
Policy. This article is styled, ``This Is How Every Genocide Begins.'' 
This is by Daniel Altman. He indicates that Donald Trump's retweeting 
anti-Muslim propaganda videos in the most un-American--excuse me just a 
moment, please. I seem to be catching something. So please tolerate me 
if you would, Mr. Speaker. I thank the person who brought the elixir of 
life, water, over to me.

[[Page H9595]]

  Again, Donald Trump's retweeting of anti-Muslim propaganda videos is 
the most un-American thing he has done as President. And he goes on to 
explain that we have to remove this President and his administration as 
soon as possible. We have to do it by legal means, upholding the 
foundations of our democracy.
  We cannot expect help from the President's silent Cabinet, or his 
toadies in Congress who seem more interested in maintaining their own 
power than saying a word against him. We have to use the only branch of 
government left to us, the courts.
  Now, he and I differ on this point. I do believe we can still bring 
Articles of Impeachment, but he concludes by saying this: The President 
is trying to generate panic against Muslims in America--and I am 
reparaphrasing--clearly putting them at risk of mob violence. He says 
he hopes that he will face the full force of the law before it is too 
late.
  I might also go back a page or two and read this from this article. 
He indicates that the first thing that is done when we are going to 
move toward some sort of mob violence is to target a group by 
demonizing it by a campaign of hateful information.
  He goes on to say: This is presented as legitimate information by 
people in positions of trust.
  This article, I commend to persons as well.
  Now, moving forward to our current situation. It is my opinion, Mr. 
Speaker, that a President who is unmindful of the high duties of his 
high office, a President who is unmindful of the dignities and 
proprieties thereof, a President who has brought shame and disrepute 
upon the Presidency, who has breached his trust as President to the 
manifest injury of American society, such that he creates hate and 
hostility, this President who sows these seeds of discord, this kind of 
President should be impeached.
  It is my opinion that a President who demeans a Member of Congress, 
as one example; who indicates that a Member of Congress performing 
duties as a Member of Congress, duties that were associated with a 
constituent, that such a Member of Congress is wacky; a President 
saying that a Member of Congress is wacky creates circumstances for the 
Member of Congress that are, to be very kind, quite unpleasant.
  A President doing this to a Member of Congress has caused a great 
deal of concern. The Member of Congress has had threats made. The 
Member of Congress has had to take on extra security with great care 
and protect the staff. This is the kind of thing that we don't expect a 
Member of Congress to have to endure as a result of something a 
President might say.
  A President who indicates that there will be a ban on Muslims coming 
into our country, a President should not single out a religious group 
and indicate that they should be banned from a country. In doing this, 
the President singles out people such that those who are of ill will 
will look upon them as persons to be treated with some degree of 
disrespect and even horror.
  A President who talks about persons who have signed up to serve in 
our military and who have not done anything dishonorable, but who says 
that, because they are transgender persons, they are persons who are 
not acceptable in the military, this sends a signal to people that 
incites people to believe that the President sees these persons as less 
than persons who should be in the military, persons who should be 
treated in some way other than respectful as members of the military.
  A President who calls the mothers of persons who are professional 
athletes--SOBs is the term that was used; the ``B'' meaning that those 
persons were dogs, the mothers; calling them, the athletes themselves, 
sons of dogs--such a President is a person who is sowing seeds of 
discord. Such a President is a person who is inciting people to behave 
in a manner such that they would be antithetical to those persons who 
are the sons of persons that he had labeled as dogs. This is 
inappropriate behavior for a President.
  A President who concludes that persons who are members of the KKK, 
persons who are neo-Nazis, call themselves supremacists. Such persons, 
when they are said to be very fine people, is a means of legitimizing 
people who are hateful, who are bigots, persons who have ill will for 
others in society simply because of who the others are. A President 
should not legitimize them by calling them very fine people.
  This is a President who believes that the people of a given country 
who are subjects of the United States of America, but a President who 
indicates that these people want others to do things for them that they 
should be doing for themselves, or that they are a drain on the budget 
because they have been the victims of a force of nature.

                              {time}  1300

  A President who says these kinds of things sends a signal that 
indicates that these persons are not persons who are the best that we 
have in American society, because they are citizens. Puerto Ricans are 
citizens. A President who does this is a President who is sowing seeds 
of mistrust and sowing seeds of discord.
  A President should not sow seeds of mistrust and discord. A President 
ought to be a unifying force within a country. A President ought to be 
the person whom we look to for some sense of stability. A President 
ought to be about the business of keeping a country together rather 
than creating chasms within various persons and groups within a 
society.
  This is what young people expect of a President--young people who are 
witnessing a President do things that bring about distrust and sow the 
seeds of discord are seeing something that is unusual and something 
that is not normal. We don't want them to assume that what they are 
seeing is the norm. As a matter of fact, we need to let them know that 
this is not the norm.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that these kinds of 
activities that create hate and hostility and that sow seeds of discord 
are impeachable.
  These are the kinds of things that the Framers of the Constitution 
had in mind when they created Article II, section 4 of the 
Constitution.
  This is what Alexander Hamilton had in mind when he penned Federalist 
No. 65. Hamilton so much as indicated that impeachment would create a 
lot of discord within society. The act itself, he indicated, could be 
very partisan. He indicated that there would be rancor--probably not in 
that specific term--but he indicated that people would be 
discombobulated to a great extent.
  In so doing, he also went on to let us know that it is something that 
is necessary. It is something that has to happen when you have a 
President who has committed misdeeds such that that President can be 
removed from office, and it does not have to be for a crime.
  This is something that constitutional scholars recognize, but it is 
also something that some people, for whatever reasons, do not 
acknowledge. They don't acknowledge it for reasons that I will allow 
them to explain. But the constitutional scholars, who have delved into 
this to levels that most people don't have, acknowledged that 
Presidents don't have to be impeached for crimes only.
  As a matter of fact, in 1804, John Pickering, a Federal judge, was 
subject to impeachment. He was impeached, and he committed no crime 
that was noted in the Articles of Impeachment. He was impeached for 
being intemperate. As I indicated earlier, and I think some things bear 
repeating, Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. In the 10th article of 
the Articles of Impeachment, it was alleged that he demeaned Congress. 
He said bad things about Congress, and, as a result, he was impeached.
  Now, no President has been convicted. Impeachment is within the 
province of the House of Representatives. If a majority of the Members 
vote to impeach, a President is then impeached, and the action moves to 
the Senate where there is a trial in the Senate presided over by the 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. If the President is found guilty, 
then the President is impeached and can be removed from office. The 
impeachment is validated, and the President can be removed from office.
  But impeachment is something that occurs in the House of 
Representatives. It is something that each Member can bring before the 
House of Representatives. It is a responsibility that a Member of 
Congress can assume by virtue of being a Member of Congress in 
concluding that a President has committed impeachable offenses.

[[Page H9596]]

  These impeachable offenses need not be crimes. I keep emphasizing 
this because really that is what this time is to be used efficaciously 
for. We want people to know, in no uncertain terms, that a President 
does not have to commit crimes to be impeached, that any of the 435 
Members of the House of Representatives can bring Articles of 
Impeachment before the body, and that when these Articles of 
Impeachment are brought before the body, the House has to act.
  How does the House have to act? The House of Representatives will 
allow the articles to be read once. Once they are read, there is a time 
set for them to be read a second time. I read Articles of Impeachment 
earlier, and I chose not to read them the second time. As a result, 
they were not read, and as a result of not being read, the articles 
were not acted upon by the body.
  This is something every Member can do. By the way, when I did it, I 
did it as a result of my conscious decision to do so without any 
influence from any person on the planet Earth. It was a decision that 
was made before I came without any influence from any person. I am 
saying this with the emphasis that I place upon it, Mr. Speaker, 
because there is some misinformation. I am not offended by the 
misinformation, I just want to correct the record. These things get 
confused, and I understand it. Most people are not familiar with how 
this process works.
  Moving along, once the time is set for the second reading, the 
articles are read the second time; and, thereafter, the articles may be 
voted up or down or there may be a request made that the articles be 
sent to a committee. If so, if a majority of the body concludes that 
they should go to committee, then they will, or there could be a motion 
or a request made to table the articles. If they are tabled, they will 
be tabled and likely not brought back before the body again. But if 
they are allowed to be voted up or down, if a majority of the Members 
conclude that impeachment is appropriate and say so by their vote, 
saying yes by their vote, then the President would be impeached, and it 
would go to the Senate. In the Senate, you would have to have a two-
thirds vote to convict.
  But if the request is to table the Articles of Impeachment, then 
those who do not favor impeachment can vote to table, because if you 
vote to table and that is successful, then you don't have to vote to 
impeach.
  Those who do not favor impeachment can vote to have the articles sent 
to the Judiciary Committee. If they don't favor impeachment, then you 
can vote to send it to the Judiciary Committee, and there won't be a 
vote on impeachment.

  There can be other reasons. I don't want to conclude that the only 
reason that a person would vote to table is because a person doesn't 
want to vote to impeach, but these are the reasons that are ostensibly 
viewed as reasons for not voting for these various motions that can be 
made.
  If I bring Articles of Impeachment, my desire will be to have the 
articles voted up or down. If they are voted up or down, that would 
accord everyone an opportunity to show the world where they stand on 
the question before the House, which, of course, would be impeachment. 
If a motion is made to table or a request to table, then I would vote 
against that because I support impeachment. If a motion is made to send 
to committee, I will vote against this because I favor impeachment.
  This is important not only to me, but to my country. This is not 
about Democrats. It really is not. It is about the democracy. It is 
about government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It 
is about the Republic. It is not about Republicans. It is about whether 
we will be able to retain the Republic that we have. Many will recall 
that Franklin called to our attention that we have a republic when he 
addressed a certain person and indicated that you have ``a republic, if 
you can keep it.''
  This is about keeping the Republic, Mr. Speaker. It is not about 
Democrats, and it is not about Republicans. It is about them in the 
sense that they are part of the House and they all have an opportunity 
to cast votes, but it is really not about something as simple as 
politics as usual.
  This is something to be taken seriously. I do take it seriously. It 
is something that the country is monitoring. The country, when polled, 
indicates its position on impeachment, and that position has been at 40 
percent, some a little bit above and some below, depending on who is 
polling and how you poll, I suppose. But the country is aware of what 
is going on. People are paying attention, and we do have a duty to 
bring before this body what we, in good conscious, believe is 
appropriate. ``Good conscious'' is a good term. I believe in good 
conscious that there is a time to bring impeachment before this body.
  I repeat, I believe in good conscious that there is a time to bring 
impeachment before this body. I have expressed my position, and it is 
no secret. People know where I stand. People know that, as a Member of 
the Congress of the United States of America, I have made the position 
quite public. Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, people know what my position 
is. They know that I have been straightforward. I have not been 
nebulous. I have not been shy. I believe what I say, and I say what I 
believe.
  I believe that this country should not allow discord to emanate from 
the highest office in the land. I believe that this country should not 
allow the chief executive officer to incite hate and should not allow 
the chief executive officer to incite hostility. I believe that the 
chief executive officer ought to be a unifying force in a great 
country. I believe that if America is going to continue its greatness 
and move forward without persons who are labeled as wacky or persons 
being seen as less than other Americans by virtue of their religious 
practices or because of their sexuality, I believe that we have a duty 
when we believe that there is an impeachable offense, then we should 
bring this before the Congress of the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I am honored to serve the people of the Ninth 
Congressional District of Texas. The Ninth Congressional District of 
Texas is in Houston. I am honored to serve the people of Houston as 
well as Missouri City and Stafford. I am honored to serve, but I am a 
United States Congressman, and the Constitution of the United States of 
America addresses all of the people within the United States of 
America. So when I bring my views to the floor, when I stand in the 
well and make my comments, I am speaking for the people of the Ninth 
Congressional District. But I am also speaking for a good many people 
of the United States of America, and a good many people in the United 
States of America are of the opinion, Mr. Speaker, that impeachment is 
not only appropriate but necessary.
  Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would like to announce that next week here 
in the Congress of the United States of America, I will bring Articles 
of Impeachment to present to this body such that Donald J. Trump will 
be impeached.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

                          ____________________