The House rejected another effort to impeach President Donald Trump on Tuesday as Republicans and a group of Democrats moved to shut down the resolution just weeks before the November midterm elections.
Lawmakers voted 232-147 to table articles of impeachment introduced by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, effectively ending his latest attempt to remove Trump from office.
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Eighteen Democrats joined nearly every Republican in voting to table the resolution, while 47 members voted present.
Those voting to block Green’s effort included Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Kathy Castor of Florida, and Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark, and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar were among the lawmakers who voted present rather than taking a position for or against the impeachment articles.
Democratic leaders said Green brought the resolution to the floor without the investigations, hearings, or other formal work they believe should precede an impeachment vote.
Green’s resolution accused Trump of committing impeachable abuses through his administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, including operations involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
The articles specifically cited civilians killed during confrontations with federal immigration officers and accused the administration of operating immigration agencies without sufficient accountability or oversight.
The Trump administration has defended the officers involved in those incidents, maintaining that they acted in self-defense, while relatives of some of those killed and others have disputed the government’s descriptions of what occurred.
Green argued that failing to pursue impeachment would send a message that the conduct alleged in his resolution did not rise to the constitutional standard for congressional action.
“The issue isn’t whether the President is guilty of impeachable offenses, because he is,” Green wrote to colleagues while urging them to support his resolution, expressing his own conclusion about Trump’s conduct.
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Democratic leaders did not embrace that argument and instead sought to distance the caucus from another impeachment fight immediately before voters decide control of Congress.
Aguilar said before the vote that impeachment was not among House Democrats’ top priorities and suggested that Republican-aligned media outlets were more interested in discussing the issue than Democratic leaders were.
The Washington Post reported that Democratic leaders recommended voting present because they believed the investigative groundwork necessary to support impeachment had not been completed.
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The vote exposed a divide between Democrats prepared to support Green’s allegations and members who either opposed the effort outright or were unwilling to advance it under the circumstances.
Green has repeatedly sought Trump’s impeachment during both of the president’s terms and has often pursued the issue even when Democratic leaders declined to support his efforts.
Tuesday’s resolution was Green’s eighth impeachment attempt overall and his fourth since Trump returned to the White House, according to reporting on the vote.
Trump was impeached twice by the House during his first term but acquitted by the Senate in both cases.
Green’s latest attempt focused primarily on immigration enforcement rather than the issues that drove Trump’s previous impeachments.
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The Texas Democrat has also clashed publicly with Trump during joint sessions of Congress and was censured by the House following one disruption during a presidential address.
Green will leave Congress in January after losing his Democratic primary earlier this year following changes to his Houston-area district.
For Democratic leaders, the immediate result avoided a full impeachment debate during the closing stretch before the midterms while still allowing members who supported Green’s effort to register that position.
For Green, the outcome represented another defeat but also demonstrated considerably more Democratic support for allowing his impeachment effort to proceed than some of his earlier attempts received, The Hill reported.
The final 232-147 vote nevertheless left the result unmistakable: the House declined to move forward with Green’s latest effort to impeach the president.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
