A Democrat member of the U.S. Congress said Monday that she believes that President Donald J. Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors worthy of impeachment, but did not say what those crimes were.
Calling it a “solemn moment,” Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI-11) said that Congress will try to get Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump.
“If [Pence] doesn’t, we are going to move forward with impeachment,” Stevens said in an interview with Detroit’s WDIV. “I know many people see impeachment as political, but I take the oath very seriously as a member of Congress. You’re not a member of Congress if you’re not taking that oath, particularly to our Constitution, and reading through our Constitution, particularly our 14th Amendment, section three ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ things that are on the table here. We’ve got to bring some justice to this situation. We had a national security crisis on Wednesday.”
What exactly those “things that are on the table” are – in other words, which crimes Trump has allegedly committed that would justify impeachment – Stevens did not specify.
The Michigan Star reached out to Stevens’ office for clarification, but did not receive a response.
“Certainly here back home in our wonderful Michigan, one of the things that I keep hearing from people is that we need justice – we need accountability,” Stevens said during the interview. “People have even said [Trump] needs to be punished for what happened. So that’s in part why the impeachment process is going to be utilized here.”
Since Stevens’ interview, the Democrats have apparently made up their minds.
According to a Washington Post report from late Monday morning, House Democrats have introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, charging him with “incitement of an insurrection.”
That charge stems from mostly peaceful protests in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday, wherein Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building. One Trump supporter was killed by authorities during the event.
This is the second time Democrats will attempt to impeach Trump.
The first time, they were successful in impeaching him over a phone call made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing Trump of attempting to exchange political favors for dirt on now-President-Elect Joe Biden, which they called a “quid pro quo.” Democrats did not have enough support in the U.S. Senate to remove Trump.
Biden’s son Hunter had questionable business dealings in Ukraine, and is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In 2018, the elder Biden bragged at a Council on Foreign Relations event that he called then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and threatened to withhold $1 billion in military aid to the eastern European country if one one of the country’s top prosecutors did not drop an investigation into his son’s business dealings.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Michigan Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
