[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 415 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 415
Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, of high
crimes and misdemeanors.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 15, 2025
Mr. Green of Texas submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, of high
crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, That Donald John Trump, President of the United States,
is unfit to be President, unfit to represent the American values of
decency and morality, respectability and civility, honesty and
propriety, reputability and integrity, is unfit to defend the ideals
that have made America great, is unfit to defend liberty and justice
for all as extolled in the Pledge of Allegiance, is unfit to defend the
American ideal of all persons being created equal as exalted in the
Declaration of Independence, is unfit to ensure domestic tranquility,
promote the general welfare and to ensure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity as lauded in the preamble to the United
States Constitution, is unfit to protect government of the people, by
the people, for the people as elucidated in the Gettysburg Address, and
is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, that the following
Article of Impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Article of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives
of the United States of America, in the name of itself, and of the
people of the United States of America, against Donald John Trump,
President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support
of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors
committed as President of the United States constituting harm to
American society to the manifest injury of the people of the United
States of America.
article i
Devolving democracy within the United States into authoritarianism
with himself (Donald John Trump) as an authoritarian President.
Merriam-Webster defines authoritarianism as, ``relating to, or favoring
a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally
responsible to the people''.
The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives
``shall have the sole Power of Impeachment'' and that the President
``shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of,
Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' In his
conduct while President of the United States--and in violation of his
constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of
the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of
his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed--Donald John Trump engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors,
causing the devolution of democracy within the United States of America
into authoritarianism with himself as an authoritarian President.
Early in his campaign, President Trump indicated his dictatorial/
authoritarian intentions. On December 5, 2023, Fox News aired a town
hall interview hosted by Sean Hannity with then-candidate, Donald
Trump, where he was asked, ``Under no circumstances, you are promising
America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against
anybody,'' to which, Trump replied, ``Except for day one.'' In speaking
to the audience, Trump, referring to Hannity, said, ``We love this guy.
He says you're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no.
Other than day one. We're closing the border and we're drilling,
drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator. Okay?''
Unfortunately, President Trump's authoritarianism did not end on
day one, but instead continued through condoning the undermining of the
judicial independence of the Federal judiciary, disregarding the
separation of powers, violating the due process clause in the Fifth
Amendment of the United States Constitution, denigrating Federal
judges, condoning the flouting of orders of United States Federal
Courts, including orders of the United States Supreme Court, in that:
On Wednesday, April 16, 2025, James E. Boasberg, Chief Judge
United States District Court for the District of Columbia found that
probable cause existed to hold the Trump Administration defendants in
contempt for a willful disregard for its order. The relevant part of
the Memorandum Opinion stated as follows:
(1) ``On the evening of Saturday, March 15, 2025, this
Court issued a written Temporary Restraining Order [TRO]
barring the Government from transferring certain individuals
into foreign custody pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act. At the
time the Order issued, those individuals were on planes being
flown overseas, having been spirited out of the United States
by the Government before they could vindicate their due-process
rights by contesting their removability in a Federal court, as
the law requires . . . Rather than comply with the Court's
Order, the Government continued the hurried removal operation.
Early on Sunday morning--hours after the Order issued--it
transferred two planeloads of passengers protected by the TRO
into a Salvadoran mega-prison''.
(2) ``As this Opinion will detail, the Court ultimately
determines that the Government's actions on that day [March 16,
2025] demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient
for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find
the Government in criminal contempt. The Court does not reach
such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given
Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their
actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory.''
(3) ``One might nonetheless ask how this inquiry into
compliance is able to proceed at all given that the Supreme
Court vacated the TRO after the events in question. That
Court's later determination that the TRO suffered from a legal
defect, however, does not excuse the Government's violation.
Instead, it is a foundational legal precept that every judicial
order `must be obeyed'--no matter how `erroneous' it `may be'--
until a court reverses it.''
(4) ``If a party chooses to disobey the order--rather than
wait for it to be reversed through the judicial process--such
disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any
later-revealed deficiencies in the order . . . That
foundational `rule of law' answers not just how this compliance
inquiry can proceed, but why it must.''
(5) ``The rule `reflects a belief that in the fair
administration of justice no man can be judge in his own case,'
no matter how `exalted his station' or `righteous his
motives.'''
(6) ``The Constitution does not tolerate willful
disobedience of judicial orders--especially by officials of a
coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To
permit such officials to freely `annul the judgments of the
courts of the United States' would not just `destroy the rights
acquired under those judgments'; it would make `a solemn
mockery' of `the constitution itself.'''
(7) ```So fatal a result must be deprecated by all.'''
(8) ``For the foregoing reasons, the Court will find
probable cause that Defendants' actions constitute contempt. It
will provide them an opportunity to purge such contempt. If
they opt not to do so, the Court will proceed to identify the
contemnor(s) and refer the matter for prosecution. A separate
Order so stating will issue this day.''
On March 18, 2025, President Trump published a statement
denigrating and calling for the impeachment of a judge. In relevant
part, the statement averred as follows:
(1) ``This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker
and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama,
was not elected President.''
(2) ``This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am
forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!''
On March 18, 2025, NPR published an article related to the
President of the United States of America, reporting on the President's
call for a judge to be impeached. In relevant part, the article stated
as follows:
(1) ``Without naming James Boasberg, the chief judge of the
district court of Washington, DC, Trump said, `This judge, like
many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before,
should be IMPEACHED!!!' He also called Boasberg a `Radical Left
Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly
appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.'''
(2) ``Reacting to the President's social media post, Chief
Justice John Roberts issued a written statement of his own:
`For more than two centuries it has been established that
impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreements
concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review
process exists for that purpose'.''
On April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court issued opinion No. 24A949
regarding the Trump Administration's request to vacate an injunction
issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
The court's unanimous judgment and reasoning in opinion No. 24A949
(available for perusal), in relevant part, stated:
(1) ``On March 15, 2025, the United States removed Kilmar
Armando Abrego Garcia from the United States to El Salvador,
where he is currently detained in the Center for Terrorism
Confinement (CECOT). The United States acknowledges that Abrego
Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his
removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was
therefore illegal. The United States represents that the
removal to El Salvador was the result of an `administrative
error'.''
(2) ``The [United States District Court for the District of
Maryland's] order properly requires the Government to
`facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El
Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would
have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.''
Further in the statement of Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice
Kagan and Justice Jackson join, respecting the Court's disposition of
the application averred that:
(1) ``The United States Government arrested Kilmar Armando
Abrego Garcia in Maryland and flew him to a `terrorism
confinement center' in El Salvador, where he has been detained
for 26 days and counting. To this day, the Government has cited
no basis in law for Abrego Garcia's warrantless arrest, his
removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran
prison. Nor could it. The Government remains bound by an
Immigration Judge's 2019 order expressly prohibiting Abrego
Garcia's removal to El Salvador because he faced a `clear
probability of future persecution' there and `demonstrated that
[El Salvador's] authorities were and would be unable or
unwilling to protect him.'''
(2) ``The Government has not challenged the validity of
that order. Instead of hastening to correct its egregious
error, the Government dismissed it as an `oversight.'''
(3) ``The Government's argument, moreover, implies that it
could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S.
citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so
before a court can intervene.''
On April 14, 2025, days after the Supreme Court issued the above
opinion No. 24A949, in a meeting with President Nayib Bukele of El
Salvador, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Secretary of State Marco
Rubio, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller--President
Donald Trump was present and condoned their untruthful statements
opposing the courts opinion related to Abrego Garcia's removal from the
United States and the Supreme Court's order to facilitate his return.
The meeting was recorded by C-SPAN. In the meeting, President Trump
condoned and defended the untruths that undermine the Fifth Amendment
mandate of due process prior to the removal of citizens and non-
citizens from the United States of America.
C-SPAN reported the following: ``President Trump Meets with
President of El Salvador: During an Oval Office meeting with Salvadoran
President Nayib Bukele, President Donald Trump and members of his
administration argued they were not required to return deported
Salvadoran citizen Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, in spite
of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of facilitating his return.
President Bukele himself said that he was not authorized to return Mr.
Garcia, who was legally present in the U.S. before being deported in
March. The Trump administration alleged that he was a member of the MS-
13 gang, but it previously admitted that the deportation was an
`administrative error.'''
On April 17, 2025, days after the White House meeting referenced
above, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
rendered an order exposing, with meticulous explication, the untruths
utilized--by Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Secretary of State Marco
Rubio, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and condoned
by President Donald Trump--to deny due process mandated in the Fifth
Amendment of the Constitution.
Wilkinson, Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Fourth Circuit, with whom Circuit Judges King and Thacker join,
stated in relevant part as follows:
(1) ``It is difficult in some cases to get to the very
heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all.
The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of
this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due
process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.
Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of
custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be
shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of
liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold
dear. The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist
and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he
is still entitled to due process. If the government is
confident of its position, it should be assured that position
will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of
removal order . . . Moreover, the government has conceded that
Abrego Garcia was wrongly or `mistakenly' deported. Why then
should it not make what was wrong, right?''
(2) ``The Supreme Court's decision does not, however, allow
the government to do essentially nothing. It requires the
government `to ``facilitate'' Abrego Garcia's release from
custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled
as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El
Salvador.'. . . `Facilitate' is an active verb. It requires
that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly
clear.''
(3) ```Facilitation' does not permit the admittedly
erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country's
prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do
so in disregard of a court order that the government not so
subtly spurns. `Facilitation' does not sanction the abrogation
of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign
detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all
this would `facilitate' foreign detention more than it would
domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness
and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse
views and persuasions have always stood.''
(4) ``If today the Executive claims the right to deport
without due process and in disregard of court orders, what
assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport
American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring
them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive
will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its
political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would
always be present, and the Executive's obligation to `take Care
that the Laws be faithfully executed' would lose its meaning.''
(5) ``Today, both the United States and the El Salvadoran
governments disclaim any authority and/or responsibility to
return Abrego Garcia. See President Trump Participates in a
Bilateral Meeting with the President of El Salvador, WHITE
HOUSE (Apr. 14, 2025). We are told that neither government has
the power to act. The result will be to leave matters generally
and Abrego Garcia specifically in an interminable limbo without
recourse to law of any sort.''
(6) ``Now the branches come too close to grinding
irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to
diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around. The
Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its
illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can
only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from a
public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant
contagions. The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening
the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap
between what was and all that might have been, and law in time
will sign its epitaph.''
On April 29, 2025, in an interview with ABC News, while discussing
the continued detention of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia in El Salvador,
the interviewer said, ``You could get him back. There's a phone on this
desk.'' President Donald John Trump replied, ``I could.''
Notwithstanding all that has been presented above, the Trump
Administration continues to flout the Supreme Court's April 10, 2025,
order, ```to facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El
Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been
had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.''
On May 2, 2025, Reuters reported that U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Ketanji Brown Jackson addressed President Donald Trump's attacks on the
judiciary. In relevant part, the article stated as follows:
(1) ``U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said
on Thursday attacks by Republican President Donald Trump and
his allies on judges were `not random' and seemed `designed to
intimidate the judiciary.'''
(2) Particularly, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Jackson
remarked that, ``The attacks are not random. They seem designed
to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical
capacity.''
(3) Justice Jackson added, ``The threats and harassment are
attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they
ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of
law.''
On May 4, 2025, when asked, President Trump did not affirm his
duty to uphold the Constitution, despite his presidential oath to,
``faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and
. . . to the best of [his] ability, preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States.'' In an NBC News Meet the Press
interview, when discussing the facilitation of Abrego Garcia's return,
President Trump was asked, ``The Constitution says every person,
citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process . . . Don't you need to
uphold the Constitution of the United States as President?'' to which
he responded by saying, ``I don't know.''
In all this, President Donald John Trump gravely endangered the
separation of powers within the government and its institutions. He
threatened the integrity of the democratic system by condoning the
undermining of the judicial independence of the Federal judiciary,
violating the due process clause in the Fifth Amendment of the United
States Constitution, denigrating Federal judges, ignoring the
separation of powers, condoning the flouting of orders of United States
Federal Courts (including orders of the United States Supreme Court)--
all of which have caused the devolution of democracy within the United
States of America into authoritarianism with himself as an
authoritarian President. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to
the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, authoritarian President Donald John Trump, by such
conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to democracy and
the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a
manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.
Donald John Trump thus warrants impeachment, trial and removal from
office, as he is unfit to be President.
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