Pelosi Is Wrong About Impeachment

Al Green, wearing Grayson's tie

Even deranged Trump ex-fan girl Ann Coulter refers to him as a "shallow, narcissistic conman." Shallow and narcissistic aren't impeachable. Conman probably is. But Pelosi says he's not worth the trouble-- and the divisiveness-- an impeachment would stir up. One of the first Democrats to introduce an impeachment resolution was Texas Democrat Al Green. He's listened to Pelosi's arguments-- and isn't persuaded. Yesterday, Politico reported that he's still moving forward and is ready to force a floor vote. When I saw him in that picture wearing one of Alan Grayson's ties, I called Grayson and asked him if he's still as enthusiastic a believer in impeaching Trump as he was last year. "Yes," he responded emphatically, "Trump is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Therefore, he should be removed from office. He doesn’t get some kind of pass just because he’s a demagogue."

That's just how Green sees it. He's very much not into putting "political expediency ahead of moral imperative... This is not about the speaker. It wasn’t about the speaker before she became speaker, and it’s not about the speaker now. It’s not about any one person-- it’s really not even about the president as much as it is about what he’s doing. It’s about his behavior that is harmful to society."

He pushed back on the notion, raised by Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who would oversee any impeachment proceedings, that broad bipartisan support was needed to pursue impeachment.

“If we wait on Republicans, who are not going to buy in, then there won’t be an impeachment,” he said, citing recent polling of Trump’s support among his party. “We should not wait on people who are not coming. That bipartisan ship has already gone to the bottom of the sea of sophistry.”

“I did not reflect on [Pelosi's] words,” he said, saying he instead thinks about the words of voters who approach him about impeachment.

But he ripped “status quo opinion-makers and opinion-shapers” who would refuse the “loyal opposition” a chance to be heard.

“That’s your prerogative. I am not angry with you, I am not upset with you, I just tell the truth about you,” Green said. “I not only speak truth to power, I speak the truth about power.”

Green's enthusiasm for voting to impeach Trump at this stage is largely unmatched in the party, as evidenced by the lack of votes his impeachment articles got the last time he forced a vote on them.

But holding up a framed vote sheet from the last floor vote on his articles of impeachment, which only got 66 votes-- far short of the 218 needed to pass-- Green predicted that this time around, he would get at least one more vote.

But, he mused, “when you’re standing on righteousness, one can be a majority.”

Pelosi may have many reasons for coming out the way she did Monday against impeaching Trump-- mostly around political expediency. But part of the equation is her unfortunate tendency to always be fighting the last war. Clinton shouldn’t have been impeached, she is thinking, and "therefore" (she thinks) neither should Trump. That’s not the way it works. In fact, it's outrageous. The U.S. Constitution says that when you commit treason, bribery, high crimes or misdemeanors, you are removed from office-- period. If you take the oath of office seriously, then that’s what you’ve got to do to Trump. That’s what it means to uphold the Constitution. Pelosi and Nadler should know better than to whiff on this. Let Pence and McTurtle make the argument that Trump should not be impeached-- and let Pelosi do her constitutional job and impeach him. She owes that to America. He may not be worth it-- I'll give her that-- but the country is worth it. Let's think about America first.

Pelosi handpicked-- very carefully-- Adam Schiff to head the House Intelligence Committee. And sure enough, soon after she croaked out her latest "off the table" diktat, Schiff was on NPR advocating that Trump go to prison after he's out of office. Like most Americans, Schiff feels there's already sufficient evidence to support an indictment of Trump-- even before Mueller's report is issued. I'm sorry, but these people are all derelict of duty for not impeaching him. Asked about impeachment, Schiff parroted Pelosi: "I see little to be gained by putting the country through that kind of wrenching experience as I've often remarked in the past. The only thing worse than putting the country through the trauma of an impeachment is putting the country through the trauma of a failed impeachment." How about the trauma of letting an arch criminal like Trump get away with everything because Congress is afraid to take him on?