A local political party does not, under the Constitution, have the power to impeach the president of the United States. But that doesn’t mean they’re not going to try.
The Libertarian Party of Travis County, Tex., has passed a resolution calling for the impeachment and removal from office of President Donald Trump.
Trump Has A New Impeachment Issue to Contend With
As posted on the party’s Facebook page, resolution lists several “whereas” examples, most of them related to the president’s deportations, including the administration’s failure to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a prison in El Salvador, despite court rulings.
“Whereas, President Donald J. Trump took an oath of office to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,’ with no obvious intention of doing so,” the post concludes, “Therefore, be it resolved, that the Libertarian Party of Travis County calls for the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump and his removal from office.”
Per Newsweek, the resolution was written by Ted Brown, a sometime past Senate candidate.
“The fundamental human rights violations that have come up in the immigration area have been just too much to handle. The Libertarian Party is a pro-immigration party, and I am very pro-immigrant,” Brown told the outlet.
Libertarians and Trump
The Libertarian Party and movement are somewhat esoteric and plagued in recent years by a great deal of infighting.
Trump, in May of 2024, addressed the Libertarian Party’s national convention, although he was greeted with a divided reception. Some showed up to the speech wearing MAGA gear, other booed Trump, for such reasons as “his COVID-19 policies, running up towering federal deficits and lying about his political record,” per an Associated Press story. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., during the brief period that he was running for president as an independent, also addressed that convention.
Some offshoots of the party, including, it appears, that Texas one, see Trump as the antithesis of what Libertarians believe.
What’s Next For Impeachment? Democrats Won’t Give In
The Libertarian resolution in that Texas country does not appear to grant any real momentum to efforts to impeach Trump, who was, of course, impeached twice during his first presidency, first in 2019 and then in 2021.
He was not convicted or removed from office either time, nor did either impeachment prevent Trump from returning to office this year, although he would have been disqualified from future office had he had been convicted either time.
Bigger Impeachment Problems for Trump Could Be Looming
While the Republicans being in control in Congress would seem to prevent an impeachment inquiry from being launched, some Democratic members of the House have been pushing the idea.
Rep. Al Green (D-TX), the lawmaker who was kicked out of Trump’s joint address to Congress in March, vowed at a rally in early April to bring articles of impeachment against Trump “within the next 30 days.”
Green had introduced impeachment resolutions, different from the ones that ultimately went forward, during Trump’s first term. He had also talked about doing so early on in Trump’s second term, after he proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza.
Last week, another Democrat, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI), also called for Trump’s impeachment, in this case for the same reason as the Texas libertarians: The failure to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the U.S., against a court order.
“This must be a red line. Otherwise, we risk Donald Trump continuing to defy the Constitution in his own interest, rather than the interest of the nation,” Rep. Thanedar said in the April announcement.
Fear of an Impeachment From MAGA
The impeachment specter has also been raised from the other side. Steve Bannon, in early April, said on his show that Democrats, should they gain back control of Congress, would impeach Trump a third time.
“These radical Democrats, it was over $100 million spent, they didn’t put this kind of money in not to take those two seats and those two seats put us right on the cliff, the edge, of them trying to impeach President Trump and it raises the stakes in 2026 even higher and I told you this was going to happen,” Bannon said, when trying to push Republican turnout in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
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
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