Al Green’s third Trump impeachment bid fails as House votes 232-147 to table resolution

WASHINGTON, DC: The House on Tuesday, September 15, voted to reject Rep Al Green’s latest effort to impeach President Donald Trump over the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign.

Lawmakers voted 232-147 to table the resolution, which accused Trump of abusing his powers through the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Eighteen Democrats joined nearly every Republican in supporting the motion, while 47 lawmakers voted present.

The vote came as Democratic leaders sought to distance the party from Green’s impeachment effort ahead of the November midterm elections.

House rejects Al Green’s Trump impeachment resolution

Green’s resolution accused Trump of abusing presidential power through the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) during an immigration crackdown earlier this year.

The articles cited the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, and Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero in Maine.

The resolution accused the administration of “operating vicious, quota-driven, unaccountable paramilitary forces killing people.”

It further stated that Trump had transformed ICE and CBP into “dangerous, unaccountable paramilitary police forces” that operated without sufficient oversight and posed a threat to the country’s constitutional order.

“By such abuses of power, President Trump is brazenly and wantonly devolving the United States democratic republic into an authoritarian regime,” the articles read.

The administration has defended the deaths, arguing that federal officers feared for their safety and acted in self-defense.

That explanation has, however, been disputed by relatives of the victims, as well as by video footage or other evidence in some of the cases.

House Democratic leaders did not formally whip their members to support or oppose the resolution. Instead, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said they would vote “present.”

“Impeachment is a sacred constitutional vehicle designed to hold a corrupt executive accountable for abuse of power, breaking the law and violating the public trust,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

“None of that serious work has been done, with the Republican majority focused solely on rubber stamping Donald Trump’s extreme agenda,” they said.

Democratic leaders distance themselves from Trump impeachment bid

The House Democratic leadership further distanced itself from Green’s effort ahead of Tuesday’s vote, saying impeachment was not central to the party’s immediate priorities.

“This is something oftentimes I think the right-wing media wants us to talk about,” Aguilar said. “But it’s not anything that’s top of the agenda for House Democrats.”

Green has continued to argue that Congress must respond to the president’s conduct.

“The issue isn’t whether the President is guilty of impeachable offenses, because he is,” Green wrote in a letter to colleagues last week. “The super salient issue is: What will the US House of Representatives (which has the sole power to impeach) do about it?”

Green has pursued impeachment resolutions against Trump multiple times, including during the president’s first term.

Trump was ultimately impeached twice during that period. Green is scheduled to leave Congress in January after losing a Democratic primary in his newly redrawn Houston-area district.