President Donald Trump Is Facing a New Impeachment Threat

Donald Trump was impeached on two different occasions during his first term, in 2019 and 2021, first over his “perfect phone call” to Ukraine’s President Zelensky, and for the second time over his role in the January 6 Capitol riot. Trump was not removed from office either time, although, by the time the vote was taken in 2021, he had already left office.

The impeachments doubled the number of presidential impeachments in American history from two to four, with Trump joining Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. None were removed from office through the impeachment process, although Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 to avoid nearly-certain removal.

Neither impeachment prevented Trump from running for and getting elected to a second term. And now, a Congressman has announced an effort to impeach Trump a third time.

Meet Al Green

Rep. Al Green (D-TX) is a veteran Congressman from Texas, who made headlines during the president’s joint address to Congress. In March, he was censured by Congress, with ten Democrats joining Republican members in rebuking the protest.

In February, Green took to the floor of the House to announce that “the movement to impeach the president has begun.” At the time, it was about “ethnic cleansing in Gaza,” and the comments came shortly after Trump proposed an American takeover of the Gaza Strip.

This weekend, at the Washington edition of the anti-Trump protests that were held nationwide, Green declared that articles of impeachment will be brought against the president in the next 30 days.

“You can’t be entrusted with liberty and justice for all. You can’t be entrusted with government of the people by the people for the people,” Green said at the “Hands Off” rally in Washington.

Green attempted multiple efforts to impeach Trump during his first term.

Long Odds

In using David-and-Goliath analogies in his speech, Green seemed to acknowledge that the odds of an impeachment effort succeeding, at the moment, are very long. After all, the Republicans control both houses of Congress, and would appear unlikely to initiate an impeachment inquiry. In addition, there’s no indication that Democratic leaders in either house of Congress have any interest in pursuing an impeachment effort.

Impeachment Isn’t What It Used to Be

The two Trump impeachments appear to have indicated that impeachment doesn’t have the gravity that it used to, and not only because Trump was impeached right and successfully returned to the presidency anyway.

Once again, there were two impeachments in the first 240 years of the republic, and then two more in four years. After that, Republicans spent Joe Biden’s entire presidency talking about impeaching him, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-TX) introducing an impeachment resolution on Biden’s very first day in office, and other ones in the subsequent four years; Greene also launched an also-doomed effort to “expunge” Trump’s earlier two impeachments, although whether that was even constitutionally possible remained an open question.

Once the GOP got control of the House back after the 2022 midterms, House Republicans launched an extremely half-hearted impeachment inquiry, mostly centered around the overseas business ties of Hunter Biden and other relatives of the then-president.

Despite endless subpoenas and obtaining of financial records, the House Republicans failed to find anything resembling a smoking gun of financial wrongdoing by President Biden himself. It was ultimately a different vulnerability, his advanced age, that ended up bringing the Biden presidency to a close, rather than anything the impeachment inquiry was looking at.

Could Trump be Impeached Again After All?

If Trump is impeached a third time, it almost certainly won’t result from the process about to be initiated by Rep. Al Green. More likely, a serious impeachment effort would follow a midterm election blowout that puts the Democrats back in control in Congress, probably coupled with some new scandal that’s too large to ignore. And at that point, if Trump is an unpopular lame duck with limited time left in office, Republicans might be more likely to cross him when they haven’t before.

About the Author

Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.