A lone progressive’s effort to impeach President Donald Trump failed Thursday, with nearly two dozen Democrats joining the House GOP to quash it.
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, moved to get a vote on two articles of impeachment Wednesday night via a privileged resolution, a mechanism allowing lawmakers to force action on a bill within two legislative days.
Republicans called for a vote to table the measure on Thursday, a move that effectively kills consideration of the bill itself when a privileged resolution is called for.
Twenty-three Democrats joined Republicans in pushing the impeachment aside. A significant number of Democrats also voted ‘present,’ including all three senior leaders — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.
‘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 effort traditionally requires a comprehensive investigative process, the collection and review of thousands of documents, an exacting scrutiny of the facts, the examination of dozens of key witnesses, Congressional hearings, sustained public organizing and the marshaling of the forces of democracy to build a broad national consensus,’ the trio said in a statement explaining their vote.
‘None of that serious work has been done, with the Republican majority focused solely on rubber stamping Donald Trump’s extreme agenda. Accordingly, we will be voting ‘present’ on today’s motion to table the impeachment resolution as we continue our fight to make life more affordable for everyday Americans.’
The final vote fell 237 to 140, with 47 ‘present’ votes.
Among the Democrats who voted to table the measure are Reps. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., Josh Riley, D-N.Y., Jared Golden, D-Maine, Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., Sharice Davids, D-Kan., Don Davis, D-N.C., Shomari Figures, D-Ala., and others.
Green has filed articles of impeachment against Trump several times over the past year and notably was thrown out of the president’s joint address to Congress in March for repeatedly interrupting his speech.
The latest impeachment push includes two articles charging abuse of power, according to legislative text viewed by Fox News Digital.
The first count accuses Trump of calling for the ‘execution’ of six congressional Democrats. It was in response to Trump accusing those Democrats of ‘seditious behavior,’ which he said was ‘punishable by death’ after they posted a video urging military service members to refuse illegal orders by the federal government.
The video caused a firestorm on the right, with the FBI opening an inquiry into those Democrats — who all defended their comments.
Green’s second allegation of abuse of power charges Trump with having ‘fostered a political climate in which lawmakers and judges face threats of political violence and physical assault; and in this climate has made threats and vituperative comments against federal judges, putting at risk their safety and well-being, and undermining the independence of our judiciary.’
But while the vast majority of Democrats have made no secret of their disdain and disagreements with Trump, it appears that few have the appetite to make a largely symbolic gesture toward impeachment.
Even Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has side-stepped questions on supporting impeachment multiple times this year, including most recently on Dec. 1 when asked about the military’s double-tap strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat in September.
‘Republicans will never allow articles of impeachment to be brought to the floor of the House of Representatives. And we know that’s the case, because Donald Trump will order them not to do it. So what’s on the table is a meaningful investigation, which we can hope would be bipartisan,’ Jeffries said at the time.
Even if the impeachment vote were to move forward, it’s all but certain that the GOP majority in the Senate would quickly dispense of it.