Democratic Texas Rep. Al Green claimed that President Donald Trump’s impeachment was necessary to deal with the “original” sin of slavery.
The congressman appeared on MSNBC on Saturday and cited an interest in acting on behalf of people of color. “I do believe, ma’am, that we have to deal with the original sin,” Green said to host Alex Witt.
“We have to deal with slavery. Slavery was the thing that put all of what President Trump has done lately into motion. It’s [the] insidious scion of racism. The president has played on racism, and he’s used that as a weapon to galvanize a base of support to mobilize people,” he continued.
Rep. Al Green, 73, who has been advocating to impeach President Trump since taking office in 2017, said in May that he was concerned that failure to impeach could lead to a Trump victory in 2020.
“I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get reelected,” Green said in an interview at the time.
The Texas Democrat forced a vote on the impeachment of the President in the House three times for various reasons but has stated that he doesn’t feel President Trump should be impeached “needlessly.”
He also stated that the president could be impeached multiple times if need be.
“The Constitution allows a president to be impeached more than once,” Green said amid doubt that the Senate would vote to remove the president.
“If we impeach now, or at some time in the near future, for one issue that we dearly should, then we find later that the president has other issues that merit impeachment, we can impeach again. There is no limit on the number of times,” he added.
