[Pages H1790-H1795]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1115
                        A MESSAGE TO THE CABINET

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Green 
of Texas was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.)
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. Still I rise with 
my cane in hand. So feared, this cane, by many of my colleagues across 
the aisle. It is feared to the extent that they would conclude that it 
might be more than a cane. Yet, that is simply what it is, Mr. Speaker.
  I rise with my cane in hand because it is the staff and rod that 
comforts me. I rise with my cane in hand because, quite frankly, I just 
believe I have the right to have a cane.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on several different topics. As a 
result, I will move from one podium to another to present these various 
topics.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the issue of fidelity to 
sycophancy emanating from the Presidency--fidelity to sycophancy 
emanating from the Presidency.
  I just recently saw--and many of you saw it, as well--Members of the 
Cabinet, persons meeting with the President in the Oval Office. I never 
thought I would see persons holding such high and lofty positions 
pledging fealty not to the Presidency as much as to sycophancy--fealty. 
It was just unbelievable. The only time I saw anything similar to this 
was when I was in Communist China and I was with a group of very young 
children, babies who were maybe 5 or 6 years old at most, and they were 
all seated in a line. They all behaved in a similar fashion when called 
upon.
  I saw persons with lofty positions, each of them there, I thought, to 
give the President a report about conditions related to their various 
areas of expertise and the departments that they are associated with. 
That is what I thought.
  Silly me. They were there to pledge their fealty on national TV to 
the President of the United States of America. It was a sad sight to 
see each person telling the President how great you are.
  Dear brothers and sisters--and I say ``brothers and sisters'' because 
I think we are all related, one race, the human race. Dear friends, Mr. 
Secretary of State, Madam Attorney General, don't let him steal your 
self-respect. Don't let him take your decency, as it relates to your 
humanity, from you. You are allowing him to reduce you to a less-than.
  I will speak for you. Mr. President, you are demeaning the humanity 
of the people who are in service to this country. I will speak for them 
and tell you that, if I were in that room, I would walk out. I would 
not sit there and allow you to demean me in that fashion.
  At some point, you have to grow the spine, those of you who were in 
that room. Grow the spine. Grow the will, and grow the determination to 
stand up. Be the person your family expects you to be. Be the person 
the country wants you to be and needs you to be.

[[Page H1791]]

Don't become a rubber stamp for this President. He doesn't deserve that 
level of loyalty.
  Finally, on this topic, at some point, each of you in that room will 
have to account for what you have done. I don't mean in a violent way. 
I just mean that, at some point on the infinite continuum that we call 
time, you are going to have to account for those times.
  The question won't be: How loyal were you to the President? It will 
be whether you stood on principle when you had an opportunity to deal 
with the great issues of your time related to this country. There will 
be a day of reckoning for you. It will not be in terms of harm to you 
physically but in terms of your reputational risk being codified so 
that those who look through the fists of time will see what you did and 
did not do at this time.


                       Acknowledging a Bold Stand

  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, proud to have this 
opportunity to speak in this almost sacred place, proud to have the 
opportunity to address a topic of paramount importance to the American 
people, and proud to acknowledge a colleague who has taken a very bold 
stand. This is a colleague who has engaged in a form of protestation 
that will not always be received initially with the kind of respect 
that it merits.
  Yet, as I have said before, dear friends, when you engage in 
protestation, when you protest and you ``get in the way,'' as the 
Honorable John Lewis put it--when you protest and you get in the way, 
there will be consequences. You must be prepared to suffer the 
consequences when you get in the way, when you protest. You must. You 
don't have to like the consequences, but you have to be prepared to 
suffer the consequences when you get in the way.
  Today, I will acknowledge my colleague, a Member of Congress, who 
filed Articles of Impeachment. I am proud of him. I salute him. I 
applaud him for what he has done. He too is laying the groundwork for 
impeachment.
  I said some time ago now that this President would be impeached 
again. I said some time ago that I was going to bring Articles of 
Impeachment, and I am proud to know that there are others who are now 
joining in this effort to impeach this President. I am very proud of 
what this Congressperson has done.
  Representative Thanedar, your Articles of Impeachment, H. Res. 353, 
are historic. I am going to mention them as such because do not expect 
the networks--maybe there might be one or two that will say something 
positive and bring you on, but don't expect it because they give you 
all of the rationale for impeachment, but they don't want to see it 
happen.
  Unfortunately, there are people like you who have to put principle 
above politics. I have your Articles of Impeachment in my hand, 
principle above politics. Understand, my dear brother, that when you 
put principle above politics, you are doing what the American people 
want you to do because the American people, at this time when we are 
confronting a crisis related to our democracy, the hue and cry is not 
for you to always win.
  For those who believe that you only fight when you win, you are not 
going to win the hearts and minds of the American people. The American 
people want to know if you will fight even though you may not win. Will 
you fight? Will you fight and put everything on the line? That is what 
the American people are interested in when we hold these positions of 
public trust.

  Don't despair when people say to you: This is not the time.
  As Dr. King said: ``The time is always right to do what is right.''
  ``The time is always right to do what is right.'' You did the right 
thing, and because I am confident and believe in what you have done, I 
am signing on to your Articles of Impeachment. Add my name to your 
Articles of Impeachment. I am proud of what you have done because you 
have put principle above politics.


                    A Preview of Impeachment Process

  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise at this 
moment in time to preview my Articles of Impeachment. This is to 
preview. This is not to present but to preview my Articles of 
Impeachment. Before giving this preview, I will thank a couple of 
people. There are many who I should thank, but there are a couple who I 
will thank. I thank a couple of people for what they have done in 
assisting me with these Articles of Impeachment.
  My dear friend, John Bonifaz, who has been with me from the genesis 
of this when we brought Articles of Impeachment against President Trump 
previously, laid the foundation for it. When people said it can only be 
done if certain things exist and then later on retracted all of that 
when they were ready to move forward or had to move forward, to be 
quite candid with you, because the momentum had shifted, and it built 
up to the extent that you had notables like the Honorable John Lewis 
supporting the Articles of Impeachment that I drafted and placed before 
this House. Other Members who were holding positions of leadership in 
the House of Representatives signed onto the Articles of Impeachment.
  The tide had turned, and there was little choice but to go along with 
what the people wanted--not what we were doing at the time but what the 
people wanted and the people were demanding.
  I am very proud to thank John for what he has done to assist, but 
there is also another person who provided me with some very sage 
advice, someone who I have great respect for and have admired over the 
decades: Ralph Nader.
  Many of you may not know the name, but Mr. Nader was a crusader for 
justice of the highest magnitude. He took stands when others wouldn't 
even speak the words that he stood on. I am proud to thank him for what 
he has done to assist in helping me to draw conclusions about these 
Articles of Impeachment.
  Let's preview the impeachment process and the Articles of Impeachment 
that I intend to introduce. I said I would, and I will.
  First, let's start with: What is impeachment? I think that because 
this is something that people hear about and a good many people will 
conclude that Articles of Impeachment must contain something related to 
a constitutional crisis, there is no necessity for a constitutional 
crisis to impeach--none. You can, but most of the Articles of 
Impeachment have not related to a constitutional crisis.
  The first person to ever have been impeached was a judge, and it 
wasn't because there was a constitutional crisis. It was because of his 
behavior on the bench and because he was consuming alcohol at a time 
when he should have been taking his lofty position and adjudicating 
appropriately.
  There was no constitutional crisis. Not only do you not need a 
constitutional crisis, but you don't have to be convicted of a crime. 
There doesn't have to be a codified criminal statute that has been 
violated. None of that is necessary for impeachment. There is no need 
to commit a crime.
  The best example is my colleague who used to sit right over there on 
this row at the end of this row. My colleague who sat there, who I was 
here with for more than a decade, the Honorable Alcee Hastings. He was 
a Federal judge. He was tried and found not guilty of alleged offenses.
  After he was tried and found not guilty of alleged offenses, his 
colleagues put together a committee, and they drew a different 
conclusion about his behavior. They took their conclusion to the Senate 
of the United States of America, to the House of Representatives, and 
my dear friend and brother was impeached. He was impeached and removed 
from office.
  Yet, because I am a believer, I often say there is a God. He was 
thereafter elected to the Congress of the United States of America.
  The point is, however, notwithstanding him having been found not 
guilty, the Senate found reason to impeach him.
  He was impeached for something that he had been found not guilty of 
by a jury of his peers. Pursuant to the Constitution of the United 
States of America, you don't have to be found guilty of a crime to be 
impeached.

                              {time}  1130

  Now, along this very line, I would say this in terms of being found 
guilty. That means that if you had been found guilty of crimes, you can 
be brought before this body. If you fall within what the Constitution 
allows for impeachment, you can be brought before this body by way of 
impeachment.

[[Page H1792]]

  You can be brought before the Congress if you have committed 34 
felonies. If you have committed 34 felonies, you can be brought before 
the Congress for impeachment if you happen to hold one of the offices 
presented to us by way of the Constitution of the United States of 
America such that you might be impeached.
  Thirty-four felonies, you can be impeached for that, but I am not 
going to talk about those felonies today.
  I want you to understand something that Gerald Ford said about 
impeachment, the former President of the United States of America, 
because there are some people who have read the Federalist Papers. I 
have read them. I have read the words of Hamilton, the words of Jay, 
the words of Madison. I have read them.
  They now have come to these lofty conclusions about what impeachment 
is. I am going to tell you the truth of what it is, and I defy any one 
of these constitutional scholars to contradict with evidence that 
supports something antithetical to what I am saying.
  Gerald Ford got it right, the President. He got it right. He said--
and I am paraphrasing; these are not his exact words--impeachment is 
whatever a given Congress, whenever they vote--218, a majority vote of 
a given Congress--whenever a given Congress will vote in the majority 
for Articles of Impeachment on a given date, that will be an impeached 
person because impeachment is whatever a majority of Congress says it 
is on a given date.
  Now, that was more close to what he said, whatever a given Congress 
says it is on a given date, and a given Congress would mean the 
majority of the people voting for impeachment.
  There is no appeal. It is a political question by definition. As a 
political question by definition, it doesn't go to another court if 
someone differs or the Supreme Court. It goes to the Senate, and the 
Senate has the trial.
  This is why Andrew Johnson could be impeached in 1868, Article 10 of 
the Articles of Impeachment against him, for speaking ill of Congress. 
You can be impeached for saying bad things about Congress. Andrew 
Johnson was.
  Let's get one thing straight. All of you constitutional scholars who 
want to convince people that there is some lofty definition that you 
have studied for some number of years, and now you have come to 
conclusions that most people can't understand, my dear brothers and 
sisters, impeachment is whatever a majority of Congress says it is at a 
given time, on a given date. That is impeachment.
  If Congress chooses to impeach because of the tie that you are 
wearing at a given time--I wear this tie; there are some people who 
don't appreciate it as much as I do--you can be impeached. Now, Members 
of Congress cannot be impeached. We are not included in the definition 
of persons who may be impeached.
  Now, let's talk about impeachment that I plan to file. These 
impeachment articles have been drafted. I have gone over them. They 
have been in my hands for now some time. The finished product was 
actually in my hands for probably a week or so. I wanted to do some 
additional things, so I checked, and I have changed and added a few 
things, but I have had these impeachment articles.
  There is a target-rich environment when dealing with this President 
when it comes to impeachment. Knowing where to start is the issue, not 
is there a place to start, but knowing where to start is the issue.
  I will be introducing these Articles of Impeachment, and I am just 
going to go straight to one of the articles or maybe the article. I 
have options. I may delete some things when I introduce. I just want to 
mention this option because it is the one that people talk about in 
words other than what I will present.
  They talk about this impeachment. They say that he is a threat to 
democracy. They say that he disrespects the Constitution. They say 
these things, but I am not sure that everybody who says these things is 
truly interested in the consequences related to what the President 
should suffer for doing these things.
  I am not sure that they want to see the consequences. I think that 
there are some people who literally just enjoy saying the President is 
destroying democracy, the President does not honor the constitutional 
provision related to respecting a person's right to a trial, a fair 
trial, which brings along with it the whole notion that you just can't 
pick a person up off the street, send them to a foreign country with an 
indefinite sentence, just lock them up--pick them up off the street, 
take them to a foreign country, lock them up, indefinite amount of 
time.
  There has to be some sense of reality associated with what we do, and 
I want to talk about that sense of reality.
  This President is defying court orders, including orders from the 
Supreme Court of the United States of America. He is defiant. You heard 
him say now in two venues--I am going to speak about them briefly in 
just a moment. He said in two venues that he is not going to honor the 
necessity for a person to have what we call due process. In two venues, 
he said it.
  Now, the President didn't come out and say, I am not going to honor 
due process, no. He has said what a reasonable and prudent person can 
conclude as his indication of not going to honor due process of the 
law, which is something the Constitution requires if you are going to 
take life, liberty, or property from a person. A person has to have due 
process. If you are going to take a person and lock them up, they have 
to be able to say, Hey, you have the wrong guy. They ought to be able 
to say it to someone other than the arresting person. They ought to be 
able to say it to someone who has authority over the arresting person. 
They ought to be able to go to a disinterested third party--we call 
that the judiciary of this country--some member of the judiciary or 
some judge, go before a judge and say, Judge, you have the wrong 
person.

  You ought to be able to use the great writ of habeas corpus to get 
yourself before a judge. You ought not be taken out of the country 
before you have that opportunity. Then if you are out of the country, 
the Supreme Court can tell you that you ought to facilitate the return 
of that person.
  That is what the Supreme Court has said, and that is what this 
President is refusing to do, refusing to honor the Supreme Court's 
order.
  I call that, in Article 1 of my Articles of Impeachment, devolving 
democracy within the United States into a dictatorship with himself as 
a de facto dictator.
  My friends, truth be told, we are now into a de facto dictatorship 
with a de facto dictator, not a dictatorship that has been declared by 
some official body.
  When the President of the United States declines to honor orders of 
the Supreme Court of the United States of America, he becomes the 
person who decides not only that a person should be pursued under the 
authority of the executive branch--he has now disregarded the 
separation of powers. He has now encroached upon the supremacy of the 
judiciary, a coequal branch of government. He dispenses with the 
necessity for the judiciary to perform its functions. In so doing, he 
has become a de facto dictator.
  Now, this is not in my impeachment orders, but I have to bring this 
up because of the impact that he is having. I will talk more about what 
is in my articles in just a moment, but I want to mention this. It 
could be in, but I want to mention this.
  As a de facto dictator, the President is engaging in de facto ethnic 
cleansing, the removal without due process. I know it is not the kind 
of ethnic cleansing that most people are acclimated to. Yes, I 
understand that this is a nouveau ethnic cleansing, nouveau de facto 
ethnic cleansing, removing people without due process to another 
country without the person being able to go before some disinterested 
third party and saying, You have the wrong person. Making the 
allegation that the person is a part of some gang of thugs, well, a 
Federal judge addressed that. A Federal judge addressed that, and here 
is what the Federal judge said. I have it right here. I have it here. 
Here is what the Federal judge said: So what? So what? You are a member 
of a gang so now you are not entitled to due process?
  Due process is accorded you not because you are a person who is 
living the high life, wining and dining with the billionaire class, 
living in the suites of life, having your galas, engaging in the 
various cocktail events, known to all the people as an honorable 
person. Yes, that person deserves

[[Page H1793]]

due process, but also every person in this country deserves due process 
if you are going to deprive them of life, liberty, or property. They 
are required due process under the Constitution of the United States of 
America.
  Now, if you don't respect the Constitution, well, then, you can make 
these decisions, which is what the President does. If you don't respect 
the Constitution, you can decide that if you are a member of some gang, 
I can deport you to some other country, let's just say El Salvador, 
some other country. I can deport you to that country without due 
process because you are a gang member. Well, it won't be long before 
some person who is not a gang member gets deported.
  This Federal judge got it right. In essence, he said, So what? If the 
person is a gang member, they are still entitled to due process.
  I almost admire, to some extent, the way this President can persuade 
people to believe this level of inanity--this level of inanity, not 
insanity, inanity--how he is able to do this because he is able to 
convince people that it is more who you are as opposed to what you have 
done that is more important.
  If you are associated with a gang, then you have lost your 
constitutional rights. That is what he is inculcating in our society. 
He wants to make that normal. If you allow this to be normal, if we 
allow this to be normal, if I allow this to be normal, we are 
disserving the people, in my case, that I represent.
  The Constitution doesn't allow this, but this President thinks he is 
above the law, so he says.

                              {time}  1145

  Member of a gang did some other dastardly deeds, as a result he makes 
the case: This is what people elected me to do, violate the 13th 
Amendment. Just get them out of the country.
  My friends, if you have noticed, most of the people who are being 
removed from the country, unfortunately, are Latinos. Now, I take a 
stand for the Latino community because, Mr. President, you, sir, have 
caused Latinos to become suspect.
  I lived at a time when I was suspect in this country, when just being 
Black in America made you a suspect. Now I talk to people who have no 
reason to be in fear, but they are because they see what is happening 
and they see who it is happening to with a great degree of regularity. 
And because they see it, they are fearful of what can happen to them 
and they are fearful that if they are not careful, they can be picked 
up, taken away to another country without due process.
  People are paying attention. If you can do this to one person, why 
can't you do it to another? It looks like you are trying to get a 
certain group of people out of the country.
  If you need some evidence to support what I say, well, how about 
this? The President wants to give people thousands of dollars to bring 
new birth to America, new lives, to birth babies; thousands of dollars. 
When you have people who are already here, people who are already 
participating and paying into the tax system, and persons who are 
abiding by the law. Now you have literally concluded that, even if they 
will leave by way of some of the things that you are doing that are 
antithetical to the Constitution, or you are going to force them to 
self-deport.
  Mr. Speaker, I have many people in my congressional district that are 
Latinos and, yes, the President is trying his level best to get them to 
self-deport. It is not just the people who have committed crimes that 
he is after. You don't have to have studied his behavior very long to 
see that it is people who are not of a certain ethnicity, not of a 
certain race that he is concerned with.
  If he were true to what he says, he wouldn't be saying: We have got 
to have more babies and then wanting to put millions of people out of 
this country who are law-abiding, many of them called Dreamers, who 
came here not of their own volition, and made a life here. They didn't 
decide to come, but they are here. They made a life.
  I have had to go across the border to bring people back that were 
deported improperly. These people are here in this country making 
America a better country by their very presence in the country. Not 
everybody is going to invent something to make America great. Work hard 
and treat people right, you could be a good citizen and make America 
great. You don't have to do the things that are going to be written 
across the pages of time. You can do the simple things, and these 
people are doing these things. They have made our lives better.
  You want to kick them out by accusing some of them of crimes while 
never convicting them, by sending a person never convicted to prison in 
another country, but others by bullying them out. Using your bully 
pulpit and your agents, all of whom now speak with such a degree of 
disdain for people, it is just remarkable to hear the way they address 
the issues.
  You have developed cohorts who have all become little bullies. They 
want to emulate you and your aggressive behavior in indicating what 
they are going to do to people.
  What you give you shall receive. It will come back to you.
  The point is, you are removing people simply because of who they are 
and you want to now increase the population by giving women money--
people, husband and wife, two people money. I suppose two. I don't 
know. The way I have heard it, I think it just sounds like he is 
expecting the one gender to carry this load, and it is a challenge if 
you are doing it just to get money. I would hope that people wouldn't 
say: Well, I am going to have a child because I can get $5,000. 
Probably there are very few people who will, but you are changing the 
dynamics or desire to when you already have people here.
  I mention this because this is a form of nouveau de facto ethnic 
cleansing that the President is engaging in.


                        Articles of Impeachment

  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, to the Articles of Impeachment, 
these articles have two places, maybe three, wherein the President has 
confessed.
  Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 24 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, one place where the President has 
expressed concerns that ought to cause all Americans to want to see 
some change, to see him have to be dealt with for what he said and what 
he is doing.
  I have in my hand a passage titled: ``President Trump meets with 
President of El Salvador.''
  There are three different things that I will call to your attention 
related to impeachment. The first is this meeting in the Oval Office. I 
am about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN. If you 
want the details, you can go to the actual event on C-SPAN and see what 
I am telling you. This is no secret.
  Some of the news media has picked up on it as of late and they are 
talking about it.
  Here is what it says, here is how it reads, here is what it states: 
During an Oval Office meeting--I am going to paraphrase some of this--
with the President of El Salvador, President Donald Trump and members 
of his administration argued that they were not required to return 
deported Salvadoran citizen Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Some things bear 
repeating. I say this quite often. Seems like there is a lot that bears 
repeating: not required to return this Salvadoran citizen to the United 
States, in spite of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of facilitating 
his return.
  The Supreme Court of the United States of America, coequal branch of 
the government, separation of powers, not required to return him, not 
facilitating it. That is what the President thinks: not required to do 
it, doesn't have to facilitate his return, and note that they said 
facilitate. There is a judge that has explained it in great detail what 
facilitate means. It is a beautifully written opinion.

  It goes on to say that the President--and I am paraphrasing--of El 
Salvador said he was not authorized to return Mr. Garcia.
  Now, they are sitting in the same room, the President of El Salvador, 
the United States President, seated next to each other, juxtapose right 
there next to each other for all the world to see, on C-SPAN if you 
want to see it, and so he says he is not authorized to return Mr. 
Garcia, who was legally present in the U.S. before being deported in 
March. That is what C-SPAN says: legally present in the U.S., legally 
present, deported to El Salvador without due process.

[[Page H1794]]

  C-SPAN doesn't have due process right here, but that is what 
happened.
  It goes on to say: The Trump administration alleged that he was a 
member of the MS-13 gang.
  Well, I already covered that. Allege all you want about his behavior. 
It does not negate his right to due process under the law.
  I only regret that you are not sitting and standing right there right 
now, Mr. President, so that you can hear me say it to you to your face.
  He is entitled to due process of the law. Look, if he is a member of 
MS-13 and he has committed a crime, try him, convict him. Nobody wants 
to defend members of MS-13, but being a member of a gang does not 
deprive one of due process of the law.
  It goes on to indicate here: ``But previously admitted that the 
deportation was an administrative error.'' Talk about adding insult to 
injury.
  The administration says we deported this person--not to demean him--
Mr. Garcia, deported him by way of an administrative error. Made a 
mistake. Deported him by mistake, administrative error, but still you 
refuse to facilitate his return.
  What is wrong with you? Have you no respect for the Constitution? You 
don't have to respect Mr. Garcia, you don't have to respect me, but I 
want you to respect my constitutional rights and I want you to respect 
his constitutional rights because the minute I decide that it is okay 
for you to disrespect his constitutional rights, I have decided it is 
okay for you to disrespect my constitutional rights. Respect 
constitutional rights. Mr. Garcia merits that level of respect.
  I also indicate in the Articles of Impeachment that this President 
demeans the judiciary. I think there is much evidence to support my 
position, but what I would like to do is give you what I feel are some 
of the--a piece of the best evidence.
  I believe this to be the best evidence. This is on Truth Social. I am 
told that Mr. Trump is either the owner or one of the owners of Truth 
Social, and this is a tweet that bears the name Donald J. Trump. I 
don't think he has ever denied making this tweet, and here is what it 
says, in part. It says--and he is talking about a Federal judge now: 
``This radical left lunatic of a judge''--he is notorious for calling 
people lunatics.
  I was at home looking at TV. I had been escorted out of the Chamber. 
I was seated right over there, and when I made my comments about the 
President not having a mandate to cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social 
Security, the Speaker did what was required of him. The officers did 
what was required. I am not mad at any of them.
  When you protest, be prepared to suffer the consequences. You don't 
have to like them, and I don't, but I wasn't here, so I was at home.
  He uses that word ``lunatic,'' and he used it against people sitting 
right here on this side of the aisle. He called the Members of the 
Democratic Party lunatics from that podium. Lunatics. He has never been 
reprimanded. He has never been sanctioned.
  This House could issue a resolution of reprimand if we had the guts, 
if we had the intestinal fortitude.
  To quote someone that I have learned to respect over the years, 
Malcolm X, if you just had the chibblings, you could reprimand him for 
it. Let him know that there are some lines that he can't cross. Let him 
know that he can't come in our House and call Members of the Democratic 
Party lunatics or call a Member of the Senate Pocahontas. Let him know 
that there are boundaries. You can still get elected.

                              {time}  1200

  He uses the word ``lunatic'' here, and I am going to read it again.
  ``This radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker, an agitator, 
who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama was not elected 
President.''
  That is the preamble. Now let's go down to the heart of it.
  He says: ``This judge, like many of the crooked judges . . .'' I have 
to say it again; some things bear repeating. ``This judge, like many of 
the crooked judges I am forced to appear before . . . '' 34 felony 
convictions, 34. That is not here, so I will read it all again.
  ``This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear 
before, should be impeached.''
  The President of the United States calling for the impeachment of a 
judge because he doesn't like the decision of the court. What about 
respect for a coequal branch of government? What about separation of 
powers? What about honoring the law that you have sworn to uphold?
  ``This judge, like many of the crooked judges I am forced to appear 
before, should be impeached. We don't want vicious, violent, demented 
criminals, many of them deranged murderers in our country. Make America 
Great Again.''
  This is from the President of the United States of America. It would 
be hard to convince a reasonable and prudent person who hasn't been 
through all of this that the President would say such a thing.
  The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court took issue with the President. 
The Chief Justice took issue with him. He sent a message indicating 
that we don't impeach judges because we differ with them; we appeal.
  He is defying the orders of Federal courts and the Supreme Court of 
the United States of America. That is what he is doing.
  Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 11 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your kindness.
  He is defying the Federal courts. Once you do this, you become a de 
facto dictator--you reduce the country to a de facto dictatorship--and 
for this you must be impeached. The Articles will go into many other 
aspects of this, but for these things you must be impeached
  These Articles of Impeachment I shall bring, I have said that I would 
and I will, but I want to give everybody notice right now--right now, 
take note of this--they will not be the only Articles of Impeachment 
because the President has done various things that merit impeachment, 
and at least I am going to build a record so that posterity will know 
how some of us stood during this time of crisis when the President was 
violating the Constitution. I will be bringing at least one additional 
occurrence where there will be Articles of Impeachment presented to 
this House, maybe more than one more, but I am not going to allow this 
Congress to escape having a record of what this President is doing. 
Yes, I am going to bring my Articles of Impeachment.
  I know that the President, once he hears the things that I have said, 
he will try to find some way to weasel out. I call that pickpocket 
politics, when you catch the pickpocket trying to lift something from 
your person, and then you decide, oh, well, I really wasn't taking 
that, I am sorry, just bumped into you.
  Well, the President always tries to retract. What I am amazed at is 
that the media will allow him to take the last thing he says as what he 
really meant. You would never do that for Barack Obama. You would never 
do that for, God bless him, the last President of the United States, 
the Honorable Joe Biden. You would never do that.
  However, you take the last thing this President says, regardless as 
to what else he says about how he is going to enforce his tariffs and 
what he is going to do with them. Once he sees that it is not working 
and he starts to retreat, he starts to meander back, crawl back, and 
then you take that as, oh, well, the President really meant this. What 
he was saying before was to acquire a bargaining position. Well, Canada 
didn't think so. Canada didn't think it was just a bargaining position 
when he said he wanted to make Canada the 51st State. Greenland didn't 
think so.
  Why do we want to think that what this man says last is what he meant 
at first when what he said at first totally contradicts what he said at 
last? It makes no sense. Therefore, Mr. President, you shall have 
Articles of Impeachment presented by Al Green, Member of Congress, 
because I will be fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to do so.


                        Slavery Remembrance Day

  Mr. Speaker, and still I rise; proud to be an American with great 
respect for the country I love, and I ought to be proud of it, proud to 
be associated with it. I am proud because my ancestors were sacrificed 
for more than 240 years

[[Page H1795]]

to lay the foundation for the greatness of this country, the economic 
foundation. They were sacrificed. They were enslaved. They have never 
been given the honor and respect that they merit.
  We have respected days in this country that I appreciate and respect. 
We respect Pearl Harbor with a Pearl Harbor remembrance. We respect 9/
11 with a 9/11 remembrance. We respect the Holocaust; we have a 
Holocaust remembrance. We need a Slavery Remembrance Day to give honor 
and respect to people who were brought here in chains, kept in bondage 
for more than two centuries to lay the economic foundation for this 
country.
  They had a hand in building this Capitol and a hand in building the 
White House. They built roads and bridges, planted the seeds, and 
harvested the crops. These are the people who laid the economic 
foundation. They are the economic foundational mothers and fathers of 
the United States of America. I am proud to be a descendant, a scion of 
the economic foundational mothers and fathers.
  I hold this because there are people who would silence me if they 
could. ``Censured, but not silenced.'' My voice is going to be here as 
long as there is a breath of life in me and I am a Member of this body. 
I plan to make sure that history records the truth about what is 
happening during these times, and there will be many who will want to 
read what is now my manuscript but it will become my book of the times, 
the challenging times we live in.

  Censured, but not silenced. People assumed that I was going to walk 
out in shame, but I know this: Dr. King went to jail for his 
protestation. He didn't want to go to jail. He was censured, 
incarcerated, but not silenced.
  Rosa Parks took a seat in a racist Southern town, taken to jail for 
simply sitting on a seat on the bus that was vacant. She was taken to 
jail. She didn't want to go to jail. Rosa Parks, censured in a sense, 
imprisoned, put in jail, but not silenced.
  I don't claim to be a Rosa Parks, I don't claim to be a Dr. King, but 
I do claim to be one of the many people who are willing to be censured, 
who are willing to have to suffer, but I won't be silent. I will 
continue this fight.
  People expect us to fight even when we can't win. It is not a 
question of whether you are going to win, it is will you take a 
principled stand. That is what the times require, a principled stand. 
Yes, there may be consequences. Don't hurt anyone. Don't destroy any 
property. Get in the way, as the Honorable John Lewis put it, whom I 
got to know well. Yes, get in the way. You may get in the way, and you 
may have to suffer the consequences. You don't have to like them, but 
there are times when we have to suffer the consequences for the good 
that we would do. The Honorable John Lewis called it good trouble. I am 
honored to engage and to have engaged in this good trouble.
  Mr. Speaker, I proudly yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President of the United States.

                          ____________________