Texas Rep. Al Green, who forced a vote on articles of impeachment in the last Congress, said that lawmakers needed the courage to take a politically perilous vote in order to fulfill their constitutional duty. | AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Congress Al Green says he'll push for impeachment despite Pelosi's opposition

Democratic Rep. Al Green vowed Tuesday to continue his push to impeach President Donald Trump, saying he would force a floor vote on the issue despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opposition.

In a news conference held in his office, Green (D-Texas) rebuked those who would put “political expediency ahead of moral imperative,” but did not disparage Pelosi, who on Monday made waves by saying that the president wasn’t worth the trouble of impeachment.


“This is not about the speaker. It wasn’t about the speaker before she became speaker, and it’s not about the speaker now,” Green said when asked if he would support removing Pelosi over her stance.

“It’s not about any one person — it’s really not even about the president as much as it is about what he’s doing. It’s about his behavior that is harmful to society,” he added.

Invoking the rhetoric of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., Green, who forced a vote on articles of impeachment in the last Congress, said that lawmakers needed the courage to take a politically perilous vote in order to fulfill their constitutional duty. But he also pointed out that leadership could always change the rules to block him from bringing up a vote on impeachment if they were so opposed.

“That is an option and if that option is exercised, if the rules are changed, I won’t be able to go to the floor,” he said. If that happened, he said, “I think it would be a sad day.”

He pushed back on the notion, raised by Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who would oversee any impeachment proceedings, that broad bipartisan support was needed to pursue impeachment.

“If we wait on Republicans, who are not going to buy in, then there won’t be an impeachment,” he said, citing recent polling of Trump’s support among his party. “We should not wait on people who are not coming. That bipartisan ship has already gone to the bottom of the sea of sophistry.”

“I did not reflect on [Pelosi's] words,” he said, saying he instead thinks about the words of voters who approach him about impeachment.

But he ripped “status quo opinion-makers and opinion-shapers” who would refuse the “loyal opposition” a chance to be heard.

“That’s your prerogative. I am not angry with you, I am not upset with you, I just tell the truth about you,” Green said. “I not only speak truth to power, I speak the truth about power.”

Green's enthusiasm for voting to impeach Trump at this stage is largely unmatched in the party, as evidenced by the lack of votes his impeachment articles got the last time he forced a vote on them.

But holding up a framed vote sheet from the last floor vote on his articles of impeachment, which only got 66 votes — far short of the 218 needed to pass — Green predicted that this time around, he would get at least one more vote.

But, he mused, “when you’re standing on righteousness, one can be a majority.”

