Texas Congressman Says If Senate Doesn’t Remove Trump, Democrats Can Try Again

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) listens to testimony during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 17, 2019. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) raised the possibility of a repeat impeachment process in a new interview.

“My prayer is that the Senate will take the articles seriously, that the President will be found guilty, and he’ll be removed from office, but if he isn’t, the constitution allows for additional articles of impeachment to be filed,” he told BuzzFeed on Tuesday.

He added, “If the president commits impeachable offenses, the president can be impeached more than once…so if the Senate doesn’t do its job and the President commits impeachable acts, he can still be impeached, and he can be impeached for impeachable acts that he’s already perpetrated that were not a part of this impeachment.”

Green was one of the first Democrats to suggest impeaching Trump, and he began pushing for it soon after Trump was elected to office in 2016. He first introduced articles of impeachment in November 2017.

Last week, he reiterated to C-SPAN that Trump can be impeached more than once.

“There is no limit on the number of the times the Senate can vote to convict or not [convict] a president. No limit to the number of times a House can vote to impeach, or not, a president. So my belief is that the speaker will probably say we are going to move forward with what we have now, but we are not going to end investigations and that there may be a possible opportunity to do other things at a later time,” he continued.

And Trump isn’t removed from office, he might get reelected in 2020, Green warned. While some Democrats have said impeachment has nothing to do with the election, some have broken ranks and cited the election as a reason for the impeachment drive.

“If we don’t impeach him, he will say that he has been vindicated, he will say the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the House and they didn’t take up impeachment,” he said.

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) also highlighted the 2020 election cycle, saying the House will likely impeach Trump again after he wins the 2020 election.

“Yes, but I don’t think it would be exactly the same … because even though we are impeaching him now there are still a number of court cases, there’s a ton of information that could come forward. For example, we could get his bank records and find out that he’s owned 100 percent by the Russians,” Bass told TMZ this week.

Bass added, “So you are absolutely right in your scenario, but the only thing I would say that is slightly different is that it might not be the same articles of impeachment because the odds are we have a ton more information and then the odds of that, sadly enough is that he probably has more examples of criminal behavior.”

The House will likely vote on impeachment next week before the Christmas recess. The Senate, which is unlikely to remove Trump, will take up the articles of impeachment next year.

Trump, Republicans, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensy have disputed Democrats’ allegations that he withheld aid to Ukraine in exchange for politically advantageous investigations.