And Still I Rise: Impeaching President Trump

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, unafraid, and most feared by President Donald John Trump.

I am most feared because the President recently tweeted that he would have me removed from Congress because I have indicated that I would bring Articles of Impeachment.

This is a President who has caused us to understand that the norms of society mean very little to him. This is a President who seems to think that he can rule by executive order. However, Mr. Speaker, I would have you and all who can hear this and see what I am saying to know that the day of decision is near.

I believe that, as a person who is armed with the ax of truth and not afraid to slam it into the tree of circumstance and let the chips fall wherever they may, I believe that as such a person, I am duty-bound to bring Articles of Impeachment to the floor of the House of Representatives.

I will do so because I believe what I said before he was elected this time. I believe what I said then, and I believe it now. This President is a threat to our democracy. He has done things that would cause us to conclude, those of us who have observed closely, that he disrespects the Constitution. He took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He disrespects the Constitution.

He disrespects the notion that a person should have the right to say: You have the wrong person; and to say to the authorities by way of The Great Writ: You have the wrong person; to say to the authorities by way of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

He has not honored that Constitution and those words.

This President does not honor Marbury v. Madison, judicial review, time-honored. He dishonors it because he dishonors the decisions of the court. He believes that judges who would rule against him should be impeached. He does not respect the fact that there is a separation of powers. He believes that he is the power; but he is not.

He must be brought before this House. He must be brought before this House because he disrespects the court, and he refuses to honor the April 10 order requiring him to facilitate the return or the release of a person who was taken from this country to another country, a Supreme Court mandate. He has said that he can do it; but he hasn't.

If he refuses to honor the Supreme Court and Federal courts and demeans the judges and calls for their impeachment, if my colleagues across the aisle decline to bring him into some sense of order as it relates to obeying the orders of courts, if they decline to do so, then what is left?

It is the impeachment.

Whether anyone else agrees with me or not, I want my record to show that at a time when democracy was at risk, I brought impeachment to the attention of the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, you can do it for two reasons at least, there may be others, but two that I will call to your attention. One, to remove a President--to remove a President. I don't know if that will happen this time. I plan to bring impeachment more than once. I did it before, and it led to the impeachment of the President, and he lost an election as a result of that, I believe. I plan to bring these Articles of Impeachment. Removal is a possibility.

There is always a deterrent effect of Articles of Impeachment. They can be used to say to a President: If you don't behave, if you don't cease and desist with what you are doing, then you can be removed from office.

I trust that this will become the message that the President will receive. However, knowing what I know about him, I doubt that he will receive the message as intended. I think that it will cause him to become a greater bully and to do more and say more things that are unacceptable to try to normalize his dictatorial behavior.

It is dictatorial in that he believes that the law should be followed when he sees the law on his side and that it should be somehow avoided when it is not.

Mr. Speaker, dictatorial behavior is the kind of behavior that you see emanating from dictators. I believe that this dictatorial behavior has to be put in check because we have a President who preaches law and order, but he doesn't mean law and order. He means order and law. He means allow me to do whatever I choose and then you find some law to justify my behavior. That is not law and order. That is order and law, and that is what he believes.

I believe that we have to do what I am about to do, and I trust that there will be others who will join in. However, if no one else does, then I want you to know, Mr. Speaker, that while I am censured, I am not silenced and that this is only the genesis of this process.

The revelations are yet to come, and in the revelations, I assure you, Mr. Speaker, we will come to conclusions that will cause this President to be removed.

We are now into the countdown for impeachment. This countdown will manifest itself in articles being brought to the floor of the House of Representatives next week. I fully intend to do so. For edification purposes, that means that I will first notify my colleagues by way of written word that these are my intentions. Thereafter, I will come to the House, and I will read the Articles of Impeachment. After they have been read, some time will pass before they will come back to the floor for a second reading, two legislative days.

At that time, the articles will be read again. I will call for a vote on the Articles of Impeachment. Those who will vote for it will be known as persons who have supported what I believe to be the last effort that we have to prevent this President from becoming a full- blown dictator. He is right now a de facto dictator. He has the potential to becoming full-blown.

What do I mean by de facto?

It is because we are in the nascency of his dictatorship. Someone, someday, will write about the first 100 days of his dictatorship. We are into the nascency of it.

He is testing to see if there are people who have the courage to put him in check. If he doesn't see that, then we will go on to another stage of it.

I am going to come to the floor and read these articles. Then they will be read again a second time. I will ask for the vote.

There will be probably be a motion to table. The motion to table means that if it prevails, then the articles will not go forward and have the debate and proceed to the possibility of a vote on the actual articles. A motion to table is what has happened in the past.

Those who vote for the motion to table will oppose the Articles of Impeachment. Those who vote against the motion to table will be sending a message to the world that they want this to proceed and that these articles ought to be given a fair hearing before this House of Representatives.

The motion to table will ultimately bring us to a decision that we will have to consider. It will be a moment of truth and an hour of decision.

I believe we have to do this. I believe we have to do it because if we are going to wait until there are tanks rolling into major cities, at the capitals of cities, it will be too late.

If we are going to wait until you read and hear about it in some major newspaper that the President has metamorphosed into a dictator, it will be too late. We have to stop him as soon as possible. As soon as possible is the means of doing it by way of impeachment. I believe that he will be impeached again.

I also know this. If we don't, and if he continues in the vein, in the methodology that he has been proceeding with, if he does this, then there is one other last word and that will be: We the people. We the people, with our voices, with our movement, with our peaceful protest, we the people will make that change.

This country will not tolerate a de facto dictator, and it surely will not tolerate, and you should not tolerate, a full-blown dictator. I say a de facto dictator because, in fact, he is a dictator; not announced but that is what he is, ruling by executive order.

This country was not designed by the Framers of the Constitution to be ruled by executive order such that the President would just ignore those orders, let things go all the way to the Supreme Court knowing that he has lawyers with unlimited resources, and those who would challenge him are limited in resources.

So his dictatorial character says to him you can let that go on to the Supreme Court, and you can ignore the court. Flout the orders of the court. You don't have to worry about that. You have got the Treasury of the United States of America backing you. You have got an attorney general who knows nothing but yes. No way to say to you, Mr. President, reconsider.

Your Secretary of State is going to do a similar thing. No one around you is going to challenge you and say to you that this is not the appropriate thing to do. So, yes, he has the characteristics of a de facto dictator with dictatorial behavior being exhibited.

As a result, the moment of truth is upon us. Next week we shall have the opportunity to stand on the principles that I believe were exhibited when we were campaigning, when we were saying this President would harm our democracy, that he was a threat. This will be our opportunity.

I pray that every person will vote their conscience. I am not asking anybody to vote a certain way. I am telling you how I will vote. I speak for no one but myself and those who agree with me, but I assure you that there will be at least one vote to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States.

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