House

Tlaib to offer impeachment articles against Trump by end of month

by Mike Lillis - 03/06/19 12:41 PM ET

The Democratic drumbeat toward impeaching President Trump grew louder Wednesday morning when Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) announced she will soon introduce legislation to oust the president.

Democratic leaders have sought to deter members of the caucus from pressing the impeachment issue, arguing the need for further investigations into Trump’s actions in office. They’re concerned that without more evidence of presidential wrongdoing — and more public support for impeachment — the issue could backfire on the Democrats at the polls next year.

{mosads}But Tlaib, a firebrand freshman who has long advocated for impeachment, said constituents and activists are clamoring for Democrats to launch the effort, creating “a sense of urgency” that will compel her to introduce articles before month’s end.

“We saw record turnout in an election year, where people wanted to elect a jury that would begin the impeachment proceedings to Donald Trump,” Tlaib said during a packed press briefing in the foyer of her Capitol Hill office.

“We want to work on these economic justice issues, racial justice issues and everything. But guess what? There is a wall there, and a constitutional crisis that is not going to [let us] do our jobs as American Congress members to push a lot of these agendas forward.”

Tlaib joins a small but growing group of House Democrats who are pressing forward with formal efforts to unseat the president against the wishes of party leaders.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) introduced articles of impeachment on the first day of the new Congress, in January. And Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who had championed his own articles in the last Congress, is vowing both to reintroduce a similar resolution in the coming months — and to force lawmakers to vote on it on the floor.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), another vocal impeachment supporter, has not reintroduced his articles in the new Congress. But after last week’s House hearing featuring damning allegations from Trump’s former personal attorney, Cohen told The New York Times that impeachment “is almost going to be impossible not to deal with.”

All the impeachment talk is creating a headache for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her leadership team, who want to create the space for a number of investigations to proceed without creating perceptions that Democrats have reached a verdict beforehand. Pelosi is particularly adamant that the investigation being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russia’s 2016 election meddling be allowed to wrap up before Democrats launch any formal punitive response against Trump.

“When the facts are known, then we can make a judgment,” Pelosi said last week.

Yet Tlaib — who drew criticism when shortly after coming to Washington she said Democrats would “impeach the motherf—er” — and other impeachment supporters say there’s no reason to wait, arguing Trump has already conducted a host of actions from the White House — everything from defending white supremacists, to separating immigrant families at the border, to continuing to profit from his business empire — that merit the effort to oust him immediately.

“This is the largest class since Watergate,” Tlaib said, referring to the freshmen Democrats. “This is a class — a diverse class — that comes … with a sense of urgency to act. To act to hold corporations accountable, to act in holding President Trump accountable, to act to really try to see real reforms, even within our congressional process.

“This is an emergency for many of us.”