Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Al Green (Texas) are among President Donald Trump’s most vocal impeachment advocates and backed by a sizeable coalition of liberal advocacy groups Thursday they delivered a petition signed by more than 10 million people calling for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings.
At a rally in front of the Capitol, Tlaib, and Green were joined by groups that included Need To Impeach, Free Speech for People, CREDO, MoveOn, Democracy for America, Women’s March, Courage Campaign, and By The People, The Hill reports.
“I always tell people: ‘This is your House, you tell us what to do,'” Tlaib said. “This is us telling this House what to do.”
In late March Tlaib introduced a resolution calling for the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether the House should impeach Trump. That measure has seven co-sponsors who, for the most part, signed on after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released in redacted form.
Tlaib came under fire right from the start after she told a crowd “We’re going to impeach the motherf**ker” in reference to Trump.
Green has also done his part to bring Trump to justice, forcing two floor votes on impeachment in 2017 and 2018 in the then-Republican-controlled House. And for the past several months he’s been talking about forcing a third vote.
Some House Democrats have questioned whether it would be effective to impeach Trump, saying that the GOP-controlled Senate would protect the President, but Green disputes this.
“We must impeach,” he said. “Let the Senate do what they may. We have to do what we must.”
And, he says, it can’t happen too soon.
“Each day that we wait is a day we waited too long,” he said. “I say we should start impeachment immediately, if not sooner.”
Unfortunately, not every Democratic leader is on board with this. Some say it’s too soon to begin impeachment proceedings because they want to move forward with their investigations, despite the fact that the Trump administration has blanketly refused to cooperate.
“The president is almost self-impeaching because he is, every day, demonstrating more obstruction of justice and disrespect for Congress’s legitimate role to subpoena,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a Thursday press conference. “This is very methodical, it’s very Constitution-based, it’s very law-based, it’s very factually based. It’s not about pressure. It’s about patriotism.”
Impeachment, she noted, isn’t the only way for Democrats to hold Trump accountable.
“Sometimes people act as though it’s impeachment or nothing. No, it’s not that,” she said. “It’s a path that’s producing results and gathering information, and some of that information is that this administration wants to have a constitutional crisis because they do not respect the oath of office that they take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
But results — and information — have been gathered and every day that Trump remains in office is doing further damage to the Constitution. Impeaching Trump means there’s hope that no further damage will be done.
That also seems to be the message that Green, Tlaib, and the advocacy groups at Thursday’s rally have a similar message. And they said so on Facebook while advertising the rally.
“The Mueller report is a road map for impeachment, and the longer Congress waits to act, and the more Republicans ignore Trump’s abuses of power, more people will be hurt by Trump’s vicious attacks on our communities and lose faith in our system of checks and balances. The time to act is now.”
These people aren’t wrong. And Pelosi must listen because 10 million people have now spoken.
Featured image courtesy of video above
