House Rebuffs Democrat’s Bid to Impeach Trump Over Tweets
Pelosi says committee investigations are the ‘serious path’.
(Bloomberg) -- The House blocked a Democratic member’s bid to impeach President Donald Trump amid resistance from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders.
In a 332-95 vote Wednesday, the House refused to advance Texas Democrat Al Green’s impeachment resolution that cited the president’s tweets against four freshman House Democrats, all women of color, and other comments denounced as racist. All of those who voted to move forward with the measure were Democrats.
“We have just received an overwhelming vote against impeachment and that’s the end of it,” Trump told reporters after the vote. “Let the Democrats get back to work.”
In the last Congress when Republicans controlled the House, Green twice tried to get a vote on articles of impeachment against Trump. Both attempts were soundly rejected, with many Democrats joining Republicans in opposition.
Pelosi previously said that a number of Trump’s actions could be impeachable, but she has urged caution and patience while House committees continue their investigations.
“We have six committees that are working on following the facts in terms of any abuse of power, obstruction of power, and the rest, that the president may have engaged in,” Pelosi said Wednesday before the House action. “That is the serious path we are on.”
More than 70 Democrats have said they support impeachment, but most of those discussions have focused on potential abuses of presidential power and findings in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
“I think this is an enough-is-enough situation,” said Green. His resolution asserted that Trump is “unfit to represent the American values of decency and morality, respectability and civility, honesty and propriety, reputability and integrity.”
He said the timing of his impeachment effort, a day after the House voted to condemn Trump’s remarks, made sense -- even though many Democrats are waiting for Mueller to testify to two House committees next week.
“We’ll go where the facts will lead us,” said Pelosi of California.
--With assistance from Josh Wingrove.
To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, Anna Edgerton
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