Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

I rise today in the name of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I rise today because our country is nearing a moment of decision. I rise because we are at the intersection of democracy and autocracy.

I rise to announce that, at this moment in time, I have filed H. Res. 537. H. Res. 537 is a privileged resolution. H. Res. 537 has been filed because I believe that the President of the United States has committed an impeachable act.

H. Res. 537 addresses abuse of Presidential powers by disregarding the separation of powers, devolving American democracy into an authoritarian--an authoritarian, an authoritarian--government, usurping congressional power to declare war.

Mr. Speaker, I take no delight in what I am doing. I do this because I love my country. I do this because I understand that the Constitution is going to be meaningful or it will be meaningless. I do it because I understand that the President of the United States of America has a duty to consult Congress before taking this country to war. I do it because no one person should have the power to take over 300 million people to war without consulting with the Congress of the United States of America.

I do this because, if I do not, this authoritarian President that we currently have will continue to assume power. He has already instigated an assault on the citadel of democracy, the Capitol of the United States of America. He went so far as to pardon the persons who were actually involved in the assault. He has denied persons due process of the law.

I believe that, if we do not take immediate action, this authoritarian President will devolve the country into authoritarianism. I believe he is a would-be dictator who would become a dictator.

I today announce that, later today, I will bring these Articles of Impeachment to the floor, and I will call for a vote. I believe that the hour of decision is upon us, and we all have to decide: Are we going to go down and choose the path of democracy, or will we allow ourselves to choose the low road of autocracy?

I believe that this country has come too far to allow a single person to declare war without conferring with the Congress of the United States of America.

This is why I stand. This is what I will do, and I do it in the name of my country that I love dearly.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, and I rise today because I believe my country to be at the crossroads of democracy and autocracy. The moment of decision is near. We will have to decide whether we will have a country that abides by a Constitution that is meaningful or ignores a Constitution such that it becomes meaningless.

I choose to stand on the grounds laid by the Founders and Framers of the Constitution. I stand today to announce that at the conclusion of this 1-minute message, I will bring Articles of Impeachment to the attention of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I rise to give notice of my intention to raise a question of the privileges of the House.

The form of the resolution is as follows:

H. Res. 537, impeaching, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

In the House of Representatives, June 24, 2025, Mr. Al Green of Texas submitted the following resolution;

Resolution, impeaching Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Resolved, that Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the Senate:

Articles 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 J. Trump, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Article I.

Abuse of Presidential Powers by Disregarding the Separation of Powers, Devolving American Democracy into Authoritarianism by Unconstitutionally Usurping Congress' Power to Declare War.

In his conduct of the Office of President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, 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, abused the powers of the presidency when he disregarded the doctrine of separation of powers by usurping Congress's power to declare war and ordered the United States military to bomb another country without the constitutionally-mandated congressional authorization or notice to Congress--cognizant of the fact that should another country's military bomb a facility within the United States of America, it would be a de facto declaration of war against the United States of America.

On June 12, 2025, the State of Israel initiated attacks on Iran, ostensibly to target sites and individuals of importance to Iran's nuclear program. Iran retaliated, and the conflict has escalated between Israel and Iran, though at no point did Iran pose any imminent threat to the United States.

On June 21, 2025, President Trump announced ``successful'' attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran: Fordow, Natanz, and Estahan via his social media network, Truth Social. President Trump failed to seek prior congressionally-mandated authorization for the use of military force. Congressional leaders were not appropriately briefed or notified of the attack plans despite foreign leaders being given advance notice of the planned U.S. military action.

President Trump's unilateral, unprovoked use of force without congressional authorization or notice constitutes an abuse of power when there was no imminent threat to the United States, which facilitates the devolution of American democracy into authoritarianism, with an authoritarian president who has instigated an attack on the United States Capitol, denied persons due process of the law, and called for the impeachment of federal judges who ruled against him-- making Donald J. Trump a threat to American democracy.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war: ``[The Congress shall have the Power . . . ] To declare war . . . '' At the time, the Framers of the Constitution emphasized the goal of limiting the monarchical power of any single individual person to take a country to war over personal whims and preferences--no constitutional exception exists for a successful military action.

In starting his illegal and unconstitutional war with Iran without the constitutionally-mandated consent of Congress or appropriate notice to Congress, President Trump acted in direct violation of the War Powers Clause of the Constitution. President Trump has devolved and continues to devolve American democracy into authoritarianism by disregarding the separation of powers and now, usurping congressional war powers.

In all of this, Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the presidency in a manner contrary to his trust as President, has become a threat to American democracy, subverted our constitutional government, and devolved democracy into authoritarianism, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore Donald J. Trump, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges of the House and offer the resolution that was previously noticed.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a proud, liberated, unbought, unbossed, and unafraid Democrat. I am proud, Mr. Speaker, to say that I rise today to recognize those whom I call the impeachment warriors.

I had a press statement that was sent out, and I would like to read just a few words from it, Mr. Speaker.

It reads: ``Media Advisory and Public Notice'' ``Congressman Al Green recognizes the significant battle won by impeachment warriors.''

Then there is a subtitle: ``Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been returned to the United States and may get the due process authoritarian President Trump declared he had no constitutional right to.''

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of these organizations and what they have done. They have made a difference. These organizations have been on the front line to prevent an authoritarian President from devolving our country into a total state of authoritarianism.

These organizations have taken the time to organize and mobilize within our communities, and these organizations deserve an expression of appreciation.

I believe that organizations that go to this length should have a flag flown over the United States Capitol to honor what they have done, Mr. Speaker. I have in my hand such a flag. This is the flag that was presented to me upon my arrival in Congress by a Member of Congress. I cherish it, and I have kept it. This flag was flown over the United States Capitol.

I plan to have a similar flag flown over the United States Capitol for each of the following organizations. For edification purposes, these flags will be flown over the same Capitol, up the same flagpole that had a flag flown for President Kennedy, for Dr. Martin Luther King, and for Rosa Parks. I want them honored because of what they are doing to prevent an authoritarian President from devolving our country into full-blown authoritarianism.

Mr. Speaker, one of the organizations that I would like to call to the attention of this Congress would be Free Speech For People. This organization has acquired more than 600,000 signed statements and petitions to impeach and remove President Trump from office.

The Women's March is another organization that has been engaged. The Mayday Movement, the Fourteenth Now! movement, and the Citizens' Impeachment movement.

I have two friends that I would like to single out who have been very helpful: Jessica Denson would be one. She is with ``Lights On with Jessica Denson,'' a podcast, and my constitutional law friend, attorney John Bonifaz.

I plan to have these flags flown this week, and they will be presented to these organizations at a later time.

These flags will represent what I believe is a true testament from one Member of Congress to say to them:

Please know that you have won a battle. You have been able

to bring Mr. Garcia back to this country with your work.

However, that battle doesn't mean that the war is over. We

still have a war to fight because we have an authoritarian

President in office.

I have in my hand, Mr. Speaker, a column from The Washington Post. This story from The Washington Post is dated June 9, 2025. It reads as follows. This is the style of the story. It reads: ``California Governor Gavin Newsom says Trump is stepping toward authoritarianism.''

An excerpt from the actual story reads: California Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested.

This is something that President Trump said.

This is from the story:

President Donald Trump said that he thought California

Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested, a claim that Newsom

described as an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.

I concur with what he said about the step, but I would simply say this: I think we are already there. We are in a country wherein a President has devolved democracy into authoritarianism. This President has done so by using executive orders. He has done so by using the very courts to move his executive orders, but by moving them such that they move slowly and get to a final judgment that would be against him.

This President has disrespected the Federal courts. He has disrespected the orders of the court. When the courts have said to him: Even if you differ with our orders, you have to appeal these orders. You cannot decide that you are going to proceed notwithstanding the court's failure to implement the orders that you think should be implemented.

This President has decided that judges should be impeached if they decline to follow his mandates. He has said ugly things about the judiciary and has gone so far as to say that some judges don't deserve to be on the bench and that these judges should be removed by way of orders of impeachment emanating from this very House.

This President has devolved democracy into authoritarianism. He is a President ripe for impeachment, and impeachment is what we shall bring to the attention of this House.

We have already filed H. Res. 415 to impeach the President. This resolution deals with the acts that he has perpetrated related to the removal of a person from this country without due process, without giving this person the opportunity to say: You have made a mistake, notwithstanding the fact that his administration acknowledges that a mistake was made.

This President, pursuant to these articles, should be removed from office because judges told him that he had made a mistake and that he should facilitate the bringing of this person back to the country, and he has not done so as of the time these articles were filed.

This President knows that the removal without due process was an improper action; but he did it, notwithstanding the knowledge that was accorded him by some members of his staff, some persons in his administration.

So I say to you, H. Res. 415 would be Articles of Impeachment that we will call to the attention of the public. This means that they will be voted on. They will be voted on in this House. I will read them. They will then be read again by the clerk, and, thereafter, they will be voted on.

Those who vote to table--and there will be a motion to table. Those who vote to table will be voting against the Articles of Impeachment, notwithstanding all of the evidence. Those who vote to have the articles move forward will vote against tabling the Articles of Impeachment. Then we will let the record stand, and I suggest to everyone to vote your conscience. I will be voting to avoid tabling these Articles of Impeachment.

I am going beyond these Articles of Impeachment. I am going to file additional Articles of Impeachment this month, and these articles will relate to not only the President but also the Vice President. Both of them should be removed from office, President and Vice President, and I will present these Articles of Impeachment to this House this month. I don't know that I will bring them to a vote this month, but I do know that they will be presented to the House this month.

The President is unfit to hold the office that he has. The things that he says and the things that he has done are clearly indicative of an authoritarian presidency.

Mr. Speaker, I have been censured by this House for the things that I have done. I was in here, and I called to the attention of the President that he had no right--I didn't say right. I said that he didn't have a mandate, but I was, in essence, saying he had no right to eliminate or to cut Medicaid. Then I went on to talk about Social Security and Medicare.

I was among the very first to call this to the attention of not only this House and the President but literally to the attention of this country and the globe. I was right then, and I am right now. The President is cutting, by and through the Members of the House and soon to be the Senate, money from Medicaid, some $700 billion. He is going to cut now Medicare, and only God knows what will happen as it relates to Social Security in the hands of my Republican colleagues.

I believe that we cannot allow a President to do these things without challenging him, without confronting him whenever we have the opportunity.

Having done so, I was censured for what I did, and I accepted my censure. I accepted it. It doesn't mean that I agreed with it, but I accepted my censure because I believe that if you protest, you have got to be prepared to suffer the consequences. I was prepared to suffer the consequences. I don't agree with them. I believe that when we do things that contravene the law, things that are not in harmony with society, things that are causing harm to society, I believe that there are punishments that we should suffer. If you break the law, you should suffer punishment.

I believe that a President who is breaking the law by avoiding the constitutional responsibilities imposed upon him by his oath of office, by the Constitution itself, I believe that when

he does this, impeachment is the remedy. If the courts cannot control him and my Republican colleagues, who have the majority in the House and the Senate, won't control him, then the only thing left is impeachment.

That means that the Congress of the United States of America, in this House, this will become the court of last resort. We plan to use the court of last resort to bring justice to the country for what an unfit President is doing to devolve our democracy into autocracy.

I believe that this is something that must be done, notwithstanding the fact that I have been censured, yes; but I haven't been silenced, and I will not be silenced. I will not be silenced because too much is at stake. The country is devolving into this autocracy, this authoritarianism, and we have to speak up.

I don't ask others to do what I do. I don't mind standing alone. If it means standing alone, I will stand alone. I would hope that there would be others of goodwill who would stand also. If they don't, I leave that to them to deal with as they choose to navigate their way through this Congress and through life.

I have been silenced, no. I have been censured, yes. I plan to continue with this movement. This movement is something that I call now a countdown to impeachment. This countdown is something that I embrace. I embrace it with my friends, all of whom I have named, but I think sometimes it bears repeating certain things.

I want the folk over at Free Speech For People to know that this countdown to impeachment includes them, and there are more than 6,000 persons they have on their petition.

The Women's March, a group of women who have come together to claim and demand that women have the respect in this society that men have. As an example: Men get paid more for work that women are doing, the same work, but don't get equal pay. Some estimate it to be about 20- plus percent, maybe 25, 26 percent. Well, there isn't a man alive who is worth 26 cents more than a woman. We have to make sure that the Women's March is supported, and I am going to support them.

The Mayday Movement, a movement started to make sure that this President knows that there are people who are going to march and protest to make sure he is impeached. They are all a part of the countdown to impeachment.

The Fourteenth Now! movement is something that started very early on in the Presidency and the President's reign this time, in this President's term of office. This movement was started to prevent what is happening now, and that is our government is devolving into authoritarianism.

Finally, the Citizens' Impeachment movement, this movement is something that has grassroots elements associated with it across the country. I am proud to say that they are part of the countdown to impeachment.

Again, a flag will be flown in honor of these organizations for the efforts that they have made. I will bring additional Articles of Impeachment to the attention of the Congress this month to impeach not only the President but also the Vice President.

Finally, the articles that I have presented already to this Congress will be read, and they will be voted on. Make no mistake about it, I will bring additional Articles of Impeachment because this President continues to breach the mandates of the Constitution. As long as he continues to do it, I will continue to bring Articles of Impeachment. I think we are laying the foundation for his being impeached.

Finally, there are those who contend that we should not impeach at this time. Well, I contend that there are many things that we bring to the floor of the House that we don't get the kind of results that we desire when we bring them initially, many things.

We have brought the equality legislation before the House, and we passed it twice in the House. That doesn't mean that we are not going to continue with it. We are not going to give up on it. It took us almost 100 years to get the Affordable Care Act. We never gave up on it.

Bringing things to the attention of the House that don't get passed the first time, that is nothing new. I believe that we will do this, and we will be persistent with it.

I know that as we do it, we will gain additional momentum. There will be many who won't vote for it initially, but then there will be more the second time that will--and more the third time, the fourth time, and however many times it is necessary to get us to our final Articles of Impeachment that will bring President Trump down. He does not deserve to hold the office that he holds.

Mr. Speaker, impeachment is the remedy when the courts can't control him and when his party won't control him. It is left up to us, those of us who have the will and courage to bring Articles of Impeachment before the Congress of the United States of America.

This will be done. This is my pledge. The countdown to impeachment continues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. Mr. Speaker, and still I

rise, proud to be an American, proud of what this country stands for. I also rise as a person who is censured. I have been censured, but I have not been silenced.

I rise as an unbought, unbossed, unafraid, liberated Democrat. As such, I rise to speak on a topic today that I believe to be most important to the American people, most important to posterity, most important to the direction of the country, most important to who we are.

The topic is about Congress and why Congress is the court of last resort for an authoritarian President.

Let me start by saying this that I think is exceedingly important. There are many among us who would manage authoritarianism. They would want to find a way to work with it, to become a part of it if it benefits them, to make it something that is acceptable to many of the people in the classes and, perhaps, some of the people in the masses.

I am not one of the persons who would do this. I believe that authoritarianism, Mr. Speaker, must not be managed. It must be eliminated.

This country was founded upon the basic premise that it would be a democratic republic where you elect your Representatives to vote for you. This is a democracy. As such, in this democratic republic, I choose to stand and fight this movement toward authoritarianism. I stand to do so because the greatness of America is not going to be found among a very few who have power concentrated in their hands or in a single person who has power concentrated in his hands. That is not where the greatness of America is achieved.

The greatness of America is achieved by the people having the power and the people making the decisions; by having a Supreme Court that is respected, that is honored; by having a judiciary that is respected; by having a Congress that is respected; by avoiding what could become authoritarianism that metamorphoses into something even greater in harm to this country than the authoritarianism that we face today.

I rise to indicate that Congress is the court of last resort for an authoritarian President, and here is why. It is the court of last resort because when an authoritarian issues executive orders and expects them to be honored, even when the courts disagree; when an authoritarian believes that his orders supersede, supplant, if you will, the rule of law, supersede what has become commonplace in terms of understanding the rule of law in this country; when an authoritarian will defy Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, then we have to conclude that the Supreme Court may not be the court of last resort as it should be for an authoritarian President, someone who is assuming power that he should not assume with executive orders that cannot change the Constitution.

When we have a President who, by executive order, believes that he can remove people from the country without due process, and when this President is told that due process must be accorded people before he can take this extreme action, and when this President is told not only must there be due process, but if you believe that the court has made a ruling that is inappropriate, that the court has made a mistake, you must still honor that court order and appeal; that the appellate courts will then take charge of what you believe to be an incorrect decision by the courts.

When I see a President saying to the country that a court that has issued an order that he does not agree with but contends is inappropriate for various and sundry reasons, when I see that President say that the judge that issued that order should be impeached, you are now moving into authoritarianism.

When that President then sits with others in his Cabinet and they are caught on national TV indicating why they can defy the Federal court's orders, after having been told that they have to appeal, after having been told that they cannot do what they have done, after having been told that they have to facilitate the return of someone that they have improperly, and according to what members of this administration have said, removed from the country by mistake, then you have to bring that person the relief necessary for that person to raise his hand and say, You got the wrong person; for that person to say, I want my rights of due process under the law in this country.

We have a President who believes that his executive orders exceed and supersede the orders of Federal courts.

How do I know? I know because he has not returned a person to this country that he was told to facilitate the return of such that he could receive due process or just facilitate such that this person could get due process. It hasn't happened.

The lower courts have told him at the Federal level, the Supreme Court has told him, and the evidence now exists that he understands what facilitate means because there was a second person who was removed without due process, removed to another country without due process, and that person is being brought back because the judge in a Federal court said you have to facilitate the return.

They know what facilitate means. They are just being defiant. They are just ignoring the orders of the Federal courts.

They are flouting the orders of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Make no mistake about it: We are now dealing with an authoritarian President who I choose not to manage. I choose to eliminate the authoritarianism. I don't want us to try to find a way to get along with an authoritarian.

If the Supreme Court cannot manage this authoritarian President to the extent that he would cease and desist and obey the Court's orders and if an authoritarian President now has total control of the Republicans who represent this House and the Senate--total control of them--they are not going to be able to do anything because he manages their affairs.

They have become people who look for a sense of direction. He has become their North Star. He has become the means by which they conclude that they will go this way, or they will move in that direction.

They can't do anything because they have surrendered their sovereignty. They have surrendered their power to make judicious decisions to an authoritarian President. The Supreme Court can't stop him. The Republicans who control the House and Senate won't stop him. We have an authoritarian President.

When you have an authoritarian President, you do have a court of last resort: The Constitution. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution makes it explicitly clear that we can impeach, and we can impeach for this type of behavior. It is not in these exact words. It uses language that we are all familiar with: ``high crimes,'' ``misdemeanors,'' ``treason,'' or ``bribery.''

Yet, we have an authoritarian President who is defying the courts, who does not respect the separation of powers. We have an authoritarian President who would demean and minimize the role of the judiciary and our system of governance.

With such an authoritarian President, impeachment and this congressional court of last resort is within the power of all 435 Members of the House because the congressional court of last resort has to have a prosecutor. Any one of the 435 can become the prosecutor once you see that impeachable actions are taking place. Any one of us can become the prosecutor.

The prosecutor will have what we will have called the equivalent of a grand jury. That will be the rest of the Members of the House of Representatives, 435 of us. Some of us can act as prosecutors. It doesn't have to be one. It can be more than one. It can be many. It could be as many as would want to sign a resolution to impeach.

Impeachment and a congressional court of last resort is where we are now. This is the room where the congressional court of last resort would be convened, and it is convened here before a prosecutor, a Member of this august body. It is not known as a prosecutor, but I am saying it to you such that you can understand this process and see that it is akin to something else that you really do understand.

This prosecutor, this person, this Member of Congress will have to stand

and read these Articles of Impeachment. This is done now because, remember, the Supreme Court can't control this authoritarian President, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle won't control this authoritarian President. They have the power to, but they won't.

Mr. Speaker, impeachment and this congressional court of last resort, Congress is where the court of last resort lies.

I am familiar with impeachment. I understand the process. I want you to know that it is imminent. A vote takes place with this grand jury that I called to your attention, which would be the Members of Congress. We need but only a majority of the Members of Congress to vote in favor of impeachment, and a President can be removed from office. An authoritarian President can be removed from office.

If you don't like authoritarianism and you believe that you have an authoritarian President, then you would vote for the Articles of Impeachment.

Mr. Speaker, is there any proof that there are people who don't like authoritarianism and who would vote, in theory, for impeachment? Yes. Before the election that brought Donald John Trump to the Presidency this time, before he was sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, there were many among us--and I am one of the many--who talked about this very topic and who prognosticated this very behavior that we are seeing. It was not the exact behavior, but behavior that would be indicative of a person becoming an authoritarian.

There were some who said that he would be a fascist. There were some who said that he would be a dictator. The point is that there are many people who are Members of this House who made this prognostication. What is absolutely amazing is that many of them who made these prognostications and who have seen their prognostications become a reality may not vote to impeach.

I am going to give you what I believe is a rationale. I think this is a vote of conscience. People have to vote their conscience. If your conscience tells you no, then I think you should follow your conscience. I cannot, in good conscience, say the things that I have said about this authoritarian President, see it become a reality, and then take no action.

I cannot in good conscience, but there are people who can do this in good conscience. I have no ill feelings toward them. I don't count the votes. I count what is necessary to be done. It is necessary for us to take action to remove an authoritarian President from office.

The only way it can be done is right here in this Chamber. Someone has to act as a prosecutor and bring the Articles of Impeachment to the attention of this august body, at which time there would be a vote on these Articles of Impeachment. As some people will vote to table, there is always going to be a vote to table.

Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues on the other side have alleged that this is a great thing. This is a great thing. We are going to have impeachment again. This is a great thing. Let them bring it on.

If you truly believe this, then you vote for the Articles of Impeachment. You vote against tabling because there will be a motion to table. Vote against tabling. All of my Republican colleagues who are saying this, you vote against tabling, and then see what the other side does since you are absolutely convinced that this is going to be a benefit to an authoritarian President.

It is not going to be a benefit. We will take that vote. Those who vote to table will be voting against the Articles of Impeachment. Those who vote against tabling will be voting for the Articles of Impeachment.

I said to you that I have some experience in dealing with this. I am the person who laid the foundation for President Donald John Trump's impeachment when he was impeached the first time around. I am using a personal pronoun only to communicate, but the truth is there were other persons who engaged in this process with me. I will tell you about these other persons.

I have here something that has been removed from the wall of my office. It is something that indicates who the persons were who participated favorably, meaning indicating that there should be an impeachment, when the first Articles of Impeachment were filed. This is on the wall in my office. The press assumed that it would be only Al Green. They were wrong. They may be right this time. It may just be only Al Green.

I will stand alone because when it is a question of conscience, it is better to stand alone than to not stand at all.

The press thought that there would be probably Al Green and maybe one or two others, which may be the case this time. Yet, believe me, it will not deter me.

What is interesting is that I have this on my wall. By the way, many of the people who are listed here as persons who supported H. Res. 646, many of the people who supported H. Res. 646, many of them who are listed here, they have a similar document in their offices, and they will have it on their coffee tables.

When people would come in, because this became such an important issue, they were proud to display this and say, yes, I voted to impeach. Yes, I did. That was important.

It is going to become important again. Make no mistake about it, it will be important again.

I am not going to name all the persons on this first article of a resolution for impeachment, but I will tell you that there were 58. They were known as the first 58.

There is one person who I will mention because I am proud and he was proud to have associated with these Articles of Impeachment. I remember talking to him right in this area about impeachment.

I will not divulge the entirety of the conversation, but I am proud to say this: The Honorable John Lewis has his name on these Articles of Impeachment--the Honorable John Lewis, the first 58.

The first 58 was not sufficient, and I knew that it wouldn't be. By the way, whenever I say ``I,'' assume that I am saying ``we'' because there were persons who were engaged in helping me.

I knew that it would not be enough, and I knew that we would have to continue to build on this to generate a mass such that impeachment could no longer be ignored. Many of the people who were opposed to impeachment were making it clear that certain things would have to happen before there could be impeachment.

You would have to have bipartisan support for impeachment. You would have to have--well, let's just say certain things. If I say more, I will probably say enough that you will know who I am talking about, and I don't care to mention names at this time. If I am forced to, I will.

We moved forward with a second impeachment. This was H. Res. 705. Many Members of Congress had something similar to this in their offices. It could have been a very large display that would unfold, and it was on coffee tables. It was placed in various places in congressional offices.

I placed this on the wall in my congressional office, along with the other article that I just called to your attention. This was H. Res. 705.

It did not grow by what some would consider a very large number, but it did move to 66 Members of Congress with H. Res. 705.

The reason I know Members are in possession of these documents that I have called to your attention that were displayed is because I sent them to the Members. I sent Members a thank-you, as we customarily do here, and it was something that they could display in the office. I had many Members and many people say that it was a good idea.

Continuing, knowing that 66 was not enough, we brought articles before Congress again. This time, the number hit what I call critical mass. It caused people who were antithetical to the idea to embrace the idea.

By the way, I never thought that it had to be the exact articles that I presented. I never thought it had to be that, but I knew that there had to be impeachment, and these articles that I presented had to do very much with invidious discrimination, something I will say more about later.

This time, we had 95 people who supported the articles, H. Res. 498. What is important about H. Res. 498 is this. When you add the persons who supported H. Res. 498 with the persons who

supported the other articles, you then move beyond 100 people--well beyond 100 people who were supporting impeachment.

Some supported one set of articles and some did not, but then they supported another, so you have H. Res. 498 with 95 persons supporting the Articles of Impeachment.

There is but one solution to an authoritarian President who cannot be controlled by the Supreme Court because he flouts the orders of the Supreme Court, who won't be controlled by Members of his party because he has control over the party. There is but one solution. There is but one place where that solution can manifest itself, and that is the House of Representatives.

Congress has become the court of last resort for an authoritarian President. As such, I pledged to many before today and pledge to the Nation today that in this month, in this month, there will be a vote on the floor of this House, a vote to advance Articles of Impeachment this month. It is necessary, and it will be done.

I truly believe in what the country stands for. I know that it has not always lived up to the expectations written in the great documents that support what the country stands for. I know that it has not always lived up to these expectations, but I also know this. It is a country with due process, with free speech, with freedom of religion. It is a country where I can vote. It is a country where I can fight to make the difference so that it can live up to these great ideals expressed in these great documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution.

I am going to fight to maintain the right to fight. That is what this is all about. Not fighting in the sense that I am going to go out and harm someone, not fighting in the sense that I am going to use some means of using physicality. No, that is not what I am talking about.

I am going to fight with peaceful protests. I believe in peaceful protest. I do not in any way condone persons who go out and harm other people, and I have said as much.

Yes, I get all the backlash that others get when they say as much, but I absolutely will continue to say peaceful protest is the way to make change that can make the difference.

I can do it through peaceful protest, and I am going to do it. That is the kind of fighting I am talking about, peaceful protests.

I can also do it with litigation. We have protestation, litigation. I have signed on to many briefs, and I will continue to do so. Protestation, litigation, but we also have something else. We have legislation. That is what Articles of Impeachment are, legislation.

Protestation, absolutely, I will never give up my right to protest. I am going to fight to maintain that right to protest, protestation. Litigation, I believe in the court system. Then, of course, this whole notion of legislation.

These are the means by which we can make the difference. I assure my friends, my colleagues, persons, this is official notice. There will be a vote on articles to impeach Donald John Trump, who is now President of the United States.

I do it because conscience dictates that this be done, and it has become a moral imperative that we have to proceed with.

Now, I close with this. This is something that came to my attention just recently. There are people who believe, I think, that I will be intimidated. They believe that I will be intimidated.

Now, these are people--other than those who have already made their many threats that have not intimidated me, but there is a new movement afoot now to do what cannot be done, as they see it, fast enough through the electoral process, meaning my removal from office.

They don't think that the electoral process works efficaciously-- effectively, if you will, for them. I was saying efficaciously, but let's just say effectively for them. The Governor of my State, while I am in trial currently defending the Ninth Congressional District--I have been in trial for many years, so this is nothing unusual to defend this district, to keep this district.

It has been difficult. Lots of money has been spent just fighting to maintain the Ninth Congressional District. The Governor of my State has now decided that it is appropriate, according to the sources that have called it to my attention, and many have. Many persons in the legislative body in the State of Texas have called this to my attention--has established what is called a redistricting commission or committee.

With this redistricting commission or committee, the Governor is going to try--I am being told--to draw the lines for these congressional districts so that it will be either difficult or impossible for me to get reelected.

Here is my message to those who would stoop to this level of political shenanigans, as I see it. Here is my message to you: The people who elected me are more important than my being reelected. I am going to stand up for the people who elected me. My re-election is not the issue. You can take me out. There will be another Al Green. There is always going to be one more.

The world seems to be put together such that there is always someone who will stand up. You can take me out, but you are not going to intimidate me. I am saying this to the Governor of the State of Texas: Do what you may. Redraw the lines such that I could never get reelected, but I guarantee you this, as long as I am here, I may be censured, but I won't be silenced.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I include in the Record the following Proclamation recognizing Dr. Dana Carson for 40 years of service:

Whereas, Apostle Dr. Dana Carson hails from Chicago,

Illinois, and is the Founder & Senior Pastor of the

Reflections of Christ's Kingdom World Outreach International

(R.O.C.K.) church in Houston, Texas, serving ministry for 40

years full-time through Executive and Pastoral leadership

roles; and

Whereas, Apostle Dr. Dana Carson is a testament to

resilience, perseverance, and dedication, overcoming

adversity as a high school dropout by pursuing higher

education and earning three doctoral degrees from Regent

University, Logos University, and Boston University Graduate

School of Theology, along with four master's degrees, as well

as several executive certifications. He is the founder and

chancellor of the Kingdom Bible University and Kingdom

Theological Seminary; and

Whereas, Apostle Dr. Dana Carson is a globally renowned

speaker, scholar, author, and musical artist featured on

broadcast television networks, releasing more than 260 books,

devotional guides, as well as curricula; and through his

music, delivering a powerful message of hope and resilience;

and

Whereas, Apostle Dr. Dana Carson was recognized by

President Barak Obama and was bestowed the Lifetime

Achievement Call to Service Award, was honored as one of the

Top 50 influential Leaders Worldwide in Pentecostalism and he

is an active member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that, on behalf of the

constituents of the Ninth Congressional District of Texas, I

am proud to salute Apostle Dr. Dana Carson for his 40 years

of dedicated service to enriching the lives of his family,

congregation, our Nation, and the globe. Best wishes on this

momentous occasion.

Madam Speaker, I was unable to attend the last three votes of the vote series today. Had I been present, I would have voted: NAY on Roll Call No. 153, YEA on Roll Call No. 154, and NAY on Roll Call No. 155.

personal explanation

Madam Speaker, and still I rise, Madam Speaker, proud to be an unbought, unbossed, liberated Democrat. I am proud also to have friends, and tonight I will thank a couple of my friends who have helped me with an endeavor that I believe is necessary and that is going to generate a movement that will make a difference in the lives of the people of this country.

Tonight, I will start by thanking my friend, attorney John Bonifaz, a lawyer par excellence, a person who has been involved with the movement to impeach and who has, through his organization, Free Speech For People, they have collected more than 500,000 signatures for impeachment.

These are the people who are at the genesis of this movement, and I thank all of them for what they are doing.

I also thank another friend, a lawyer as well, but a great consumer advocate, a protector of rights for people who we consider consumers, and that, of course, is the attorney Ralph Nader. The great Ralph Nader. While I missed his last birthday, I heard it was quite a celebration. He is 91 years young, and I am grateful to him for all that he has done. He has done things that have benefited people when it comes to safety with automobiles, safety with consumer products, generally speaking.

I thank them both for what they have done in this effort to impeach and to inspire me to do the things that I will do and call to your attention.

Madam Speaker, I also make note that on this evening, I have filed Articles of Impeachment. The articles are H. Res. 415. I say articles. There is really but one article within this resolution.

I will not read the resolution. There will be an appropriate time to read it. This is not that time, but I do want to call to your attention the fact that I have been censured not silenced, and I say this because I will be presenting this resolution, but I have many more things to say about the effort that we are embarking upon and because this effort is so important to us, I will be talking about it a good deal of the time in the future. I am censured but I am not silenced.

I am, at this moment, bringing to the attention of everyone the countdown to impeachment. The countdown begins tonight with a message that I have for my colleagues, for the press, for the public, and for all who are interested in this topic. This message will be sent to persons. It will be published. It will be on my website. It will be available to those who desire to know the essence of it.

The message reads with a reference, and the reference is: ``My reason for impeaching the President: The threat that we said Donald John Trump posed to democracy prior to his being sworn in on January 20, 2025, has become our reality.''

``To whom it may concern:

``I pen this communique with a heavy heart, driven by a conscience that will not allow me to ignore my well-founded, strong preelection condemnation of Donald John Trump as a threat to American democracy that has now become our reality.''

Currently, I am among the many who denounced President Trump as an authoritarian, defined by Merriam Webster as ``of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people.''

I am among those who have pointed out President Trump's failure to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution by flouting constitutional law, as well as the orders of Federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

I am among those who strongly denounce the President's dangerous flouting of separation of powers and undermining the independence of the Federal judiciary by calling for the impeachment of Federal judges who rule against him rather than appealing the decisions, as was explained to all by Chief Justice John Roberts on March 18, 2025.

I am among the throngs who know that the President violates the Fifth Amendment constitutional right to due process when he condones the deportation by our Justice Department of anyone residing in the United States of America to another country without providing them with constitutionally mandated legal process owed to present evidence of why they shouldn't be deported.

Regrettably, the President is doing the above things that I just mentioned in tandem with expressions of American citizens being deported while condoning the potential suspension of the great writ of habeas corpus, another fundamental constitutional right.

I cannot in good conscience, as a Member of Congress, having said what I have said, knowing what I know, wait until the next election to deal with authoritarian President Donald John Trump's pre-election threat to American democracy that has become a post-election assault on our government.

The President has devolved American democracy into authoritarianism with himself as the authoritarian. Authoritarian President Donald John Trump is the problem. The threat of impeachment can act as a deterrent. Should that fail, actual impeachment becomes the solution.

Having presented Articles of Impeachment that laid the foundation for President Trump's prior impeachments, which contributed to his Presidential defeat, I am compelled by my moral imperative, driven by my conscience to act again.

In Federalist No. 65 of the 85 articles of essays contained within the Federalist Papers, written to promote the ratification of the Constitution, the great Alexander Hamilton explains that the subject of the Senate's jurisdiction for trials of impeachment are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to society itself.

Contrary to what many status quo personalities may have you believe and would have you believe, there is no requirement for the existence of a constitutional crisis before impeaching for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Because of the importance of this statement, I shall repeat it. Contrary to what many status quo personalities would have us believe, there is no requirement for the existence of a constitutional crisis before impeaching for high crimes and misdemeanors.

In fact, in 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for speaking ill of Congress in Article 10 of the Articles of Impeachment against him. Federal Judge John Pickering became the first person convicted by the Senate. He was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives in 1803 for misconduct as a judge and for intoxication. He was impeached and convicted under the same constitutional law that all Presidents have been impeached under.

Typically, there has been no constitutional crisis associated with Articles of Impeachment. I have to repeat this because there seems to be the notion that you must wait for the constitutional crisis before you can initiate impeachment.

Typically, there has been no constitutional crisis associated with Articles of Impeachment, although a constitutional crisis can exist without any crime having been committed.

An authoritarian does not have to commit a codified statutory offense to be impeached. I raise this point because there are many people who are of the opinion that there must be some statutory, criminal law that has been violated before one can be impeached. That is not the case, not the case at all.

The constitutional law that authoritarian President Trump would have Congress use to impeach a Federal judge for ruling against him, that would be Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, is the same law that has been used and can be used to impeach him again for making his threats to democracy a reality. I will use that law again.

Former President Gerald Ford was right--he was right then and now-- when he proclaimed that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history. Whatever a majority of the House of Representatives consider it to be at a given moment in history.

For edification purposes, the Members of the House who vote on impeachment are not given any instructions, as you might expect a jury to be given. No one can tell them what the definition is such that they must honor what they are told. People can suggest but, ultimately, they are the judges of what impeachment is, and the standard that they use they need not reveal to anyone.

Waiting for a constitutional crisis to impeach can be the forerunner to tanks on American streets. Acting now, with my single vote to impeach, can function as a wake-up call to impeach as well as deter an authoritarian President and avert a constitutional crisis.

I believe in the power of one. I believe that one person can make a difference. I believe that one person who has the ability to take a stand to make a difference, I believe that that one person should.

Acting now, as was done before, can also become a part of the genesis of a public movement similar to that which led to authoritarian Donald Trump's prior impeachments and defeat at the polls in 2020, the Presidential election year when he was defeated.

I said acting now could become the genesis of a public movement. That is the movement that my good friends with Free Speech for People have initiated, the movement that people across the country are engaged in and talking about.

I don't claim that what we are doing tonight is the genesis. I think it is a part, but I don't think it is the genesis. As such, I would say to persons who would tell me: Well, he won't run again, why would you impeach? To them, I would say: Because he doesn't have to have another term within this term of office. I believe that he can be impeached for what he has done immediately. Whether he will be or not will be a decision for this Congress, but I believe that he can be and should be. Although he won't run again, Members of Congress who aid and abet America's devolution into authoritarianism will. This bears repeating as well.

Although he won't run again, Members of Congress who aid and abet America's devolution into authoritarianism will. I have not asked nor will I ask any Members of Congress to stand with me. I encourage all Members to vote their conscience.

As for me, I stand where I have always stood on the question of impeachment which, of course, is a question of conscience for me. Because it is a question of conscience, even when the odds are against me, my position is, it is better for me to stand alone than not stand at all. If I have to, it won't be the first time.

I believe that it is a question of conscience because it impacts the entire country. It impacts the lives of people within the country. The act that would bring us to the point of impeaching is something that impacts society in a negative way, impacts the lives of people in an adverse way. I believe this is a question of conscience. Because I believe it is a question of conscience, I don't tell others how they should conduct themselves, and I have not had any Members tell me how I should conduct myself. I believe that how I conduct myself in terms of trying to do what I perceive to be the right thing is something that is between me and my conscience.

As a Member of Congress, I consider these actions by authoritarian President Trump harmful to society and impeachable: condoning the flouting of Federal court orders, flouting the separation of powers, undermining the independence of the Federal judiciary, and flouting the constitutional mandate of due process, all of which have devolved our democracy into authoritarianism.

I opposed authoritarian President Donald Trump's behavior that made him a threat to our democracy prior to his election and have witnessed that threat become a reality. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience fail to take action that the Constitution provides to protect the American people.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed such questions of conscience when he proclaimed cowardice will ask the question when you are confronting these questions of conscience. This is what he said, ``Cowardice asks the question, `Is it safe?''' Is this the safe thing for me to do? Can I get hurt physically by doing this? Is it safe for me to traverse my neighborhood, to move across the country? Is it safe for me to do it? Cowardice asks this question.

He goes on to say, ``Expediency asks the question, `Is it politic?''' Is this good for politics? Will this help me to ascend to some lofty position or will this bring me down? Will this be something that can hurt my career? This is what Dr. King is saying: ``Is it politic?''

Madam Speaker, then he said: ``Vanity asks the question: `Is it popular?'''

Will I lose the smiles that I am greeted with? Will the people who normally carry on conversations avoid me? Will they seek to make me a pariah simply because I have done what I believe to be right? I am not telling anybody else what they must do.

This is what Dr. King was saying. Is it popular?

Then, he goes on to say that conscience asks the question, and I say this is the ultimate question: ``But conscience asks the question: `Is it right?' ''

Then, he closes with the crescendo: ``There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular.''

One must take it because conscience dictates, and conscience tells one that it is right. I understand that my stance may be neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but I honor the wisdom of Dr. King and take my stance because my conscience says it is right.

It is not unusual for the U.S. House of Representatives to vote multiple times before passing important legislation. Although the first vote is not always the victorious vote, it is not always the final vote. It can be a foundational vote. It can be the vote that can lay the predicate for things to come.

I have filed and will make H. Res. 415, the Articles of Impeachment, available to the press, the public, and all who would desire to know what is contained herein.

I will call for a vote to impeach authoritarian Donald John Trump at a time to be determined, knowing that the American people don't expect me to always win. I am going to elaborate on this before I finish this sentence.

The American people don't expect me--I don't speak for anybody else. This is my belief. I don't believe that the American people expect me to always win. They do want to know that on the great issues of my time, when there was great challenge and controversy, they want to know where I stood and where I stand.

They want to know: Am I willing to fight for the people whom I represent? Am I willing to take a stand for people I will never meet and greet but do it because it is not only the right thing but the righteous thing?

Madam Speaker, the American people don't expect me to always win. I sometimes measure my friendships by the people who are willing to fight, fight even when the odds are against you, fight even when you know that you are not likely to be victorious.

I think there is something about people who are willing to take up a cause

because they know it is a cause worthy and worthwhile and a cause that can make a difference in the lives of people.

I may not win, but I will know that I took a stand for righteousness and that I made a difference. Maybe not at that moment, but in the long run, the difference will be made.

The American people don't expect me to always win. However, I do believe they expect me to always fight, and I don't mean in a pugilistic fashion with fisticuffs. I mean to stand up and be counted on the great issues of my time and their time, our time, on the issues that confront the Nation and, indeed, the world.

I am honored that the American people have allowed me to have this position. I am not going to allow posterity to look back upon my tenure in Congress and say that when we had the opportunity--or I had the opportunity--to take a stand for justice even when it might cost me a career, cause me a lack of popularity, cause me a lack of safety. I want people to know that I took the stand that could make a difference.

Madam Speaker, I want my friends to know that I appreciate all of them who have stood with me over this journey. I want my staff to know that I appreciate them greatly for standing with me. In fact, we stand together.

I have a great staff. I have people who are committed not to work. They are committed to a cause. They are committed to the cause that we extoll when we say the Pledge of Allegiance: liberty and justice for all.

They are committed to a cause of making sure that we maintain government of the people, by the people, for the people.

They are committed to a cause that says William Cullen Bryant is right, that truth crushed to Earth shall rise again. They understand that when we do these things, people will say bad things and ugly things. They understand that truth crushed to Earth shall rise again. This is a great staff.

They appreciate Carlyle. They appreciate his wisdom when he said that no lie can live forever. Let them say what they may. Let others do what they may. We will do what we must and take a stand for liberty and justice for all.

I have a great team, and I want them to know how much I appreciate and thank them for what they do. This morning, I had two members of my team come in at 8 o'clock a.m. Some would say that is not really early, but it is when they are still with me at this hour, after 7 o'clock, nearly 7:30. They are still over in the office, working. I have a great team. I thank my team.

I also thank the people who serve right here on the floor. I thank all of them for their kindness, courtesy, and willingness to help persons who are trying to find their way. I thank the court reporters and the clerks.

I thank the Parliamentarian for being a person who is true to his mission. He sides neither with Democrats nor Republicans, nor anybody, but always gives us the information as the rules permit him to provide it. I thank him and all the people in that office.

Madam Speaker, I thank you. This, for me, is a historic moment. I thank you for the time that I have.

To the persons who work in the cloak room, let me not forget them. They are always gracious and kind. I thank all of you and the Sergeant at Arms.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, unbought, unbossed, and unafraid.

Mr. Speaker, I rise, driven by conscience, to embrace the moral imperative to speak truth not only to power but to also speak truth about power.

I rise today to acknowledge, driven by conscience, what the world is witnessing as we see the collective punishment being imposed upon Palestinians in Gaza.

I rise to say that this level of punishment is something that is intolerable and has to be addressed.

I rise to say that not only is there collective punishment, there is ethnic cleansing taking place in Gaza.

I rise to say that, at some point, we in this Congress have to take a stand against the injustice being perpetrated against innocent Palestinian men, women, and especially children.

This level of injustice is something that this country has always stood against, but we find ourselves today standing with Mr. Netanyahu and the government that is bringing shame to the country of Israel. Israel should never do what it despises. I believe that the country of Israel would despise this level of punishment, this level of injustice being perpetrated upon another country. Yet, we find today, under Mr. Netanyahu's leadership, Israel is gaining a reputation as a pariah country.

Mr. Speaker, to add insult to this grave injury, the United States of America, by and through President Donald John Trump, is aiding and abetting by simply having him conclude that somehow Gaza should become a resort of a sort and that the Palestinians would be moved to some other place. That is a form of nouveau ethnic cleansing.

I do not support it, and I want the world to know that if in this bill, this big, beautiful bill that the President would have us sign off on that I am already antithetical to, if there is money in that bill to support the continued ethnic cleansing, the continued inhumanity that is taking place against the Palestinians, I cannot support that. I will not vote to send more money to see innocent men, women, and especially children slaughtered the way it is taking place right before our very eyes.

The unfortunate thing is there are too many among us who are afraid to speak up. I refuse to be among those who at this time are challenging controversy, who would sit and cower. I am going to take a stand not because it benefits me personally but because conscience says we cannot allow these injustices to go unpunished. I am driven by conscience to say that I won't be supporting sending any additional dollars to Israel, having already sent and voted for more than $50 billion.

Nobody can accuse me of not being supportive of Israel. I have supported it, but I can't support the Netanyahu administration and what it is doing to the country of Israel. I can't support what is happening in my country as our President would embrace this ethnic cleansing.

This is the hour of decision. This is the time for every person of good will to make a decision. I stand for peace in Palestine and the two-state solution.

There are those who say that there is no plan for the interregnum, what we call the day after. Mr. Netanyahu does have a plan. It is to take all of Palestine. It is to take all of Gaza. It is to take the West Bank. He has a plan. Don't assume that because he is going in without our permission that he doesn't have a plan; he does.

My plan is to vote against any additional funds to the State of Israel.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, unafraid, and most feared by President Donald John Trump.

I am most feared because the President recently tweeted that he would have me removed from Congress because I have indicated that I would bring Articles of Impeachment.

This is a President who has caused us to understand that the norms of society mean very little to him. This is a President who seems to think that he can rule by executive order. However, Mr. Speaker, I would have you and all who can hear this and see what I am saying to know that the day of decision is near.

I believe that, as a person who is armed with the ax of truth and not afraid to slam it into the tree of circumstance and let the chips fall wherever they may, I believe that as such a person, I am duty-bound to bring Articles of Impeachment to the floor of the House of Representatives.

I will do so because I believe what I said before he was elected this time. I believe what I said then, and I believe it now. This President is a threat to our democracy. He has done things that would cause us to conclude, those of us who have observed closely, that he disrespects the Constitution. He took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He disrespects the Constitution.

He disrespects the notion that a person should have the right to say: You have the wrong person; and to say to the authorities by way of The Great Writ: You have the wrong person; to say to the authorities by way of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution: No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

He has not honored that Constitution and those words.

This President does not honor Marbury v. Madison, judicial review, time-honored. He dishonors it because he dishonors the decisions of the court. He believes that judges who would rule against him should be impeached. He does not respect the fact that there is a separation of powers. He believes that he is the power; but he is not.

He must be brought before this House. He must be brought before this House because he disrespects the court, and he refuses to honor the April 10 order requiring him to facilitate the return or the release of a person who was taken from this country to another country, a Supreme Court mandate. He has said that he can do it; but he hasn't.

If he refuses to honor the Supreme Court and Federal courts and demeans the judges and calls for their impeachment, if my colleagues across the aisle decline to bring him into some sense of order as it relates to obeying the orders of courts, if they decline to do so, then what is left?

It is the impeachment.

Whether anyone else agrees with me or not, I want my record to show that at a time when democracy was at risk, I brought impeachment to the attention of the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, you can do it for two reasons at least, there may be others, but two that I will call to your attention. One, to remove a President--to remove a President. I don't know if that will happen this time. I plan to bring impeachment more than once. I did it before, and it led to the impeachment of the President, and he lost an election as a result of that, I believe. I plan to bring these Articles of Impeachment. Removal is a possibility.

There is always a deterrent effect of Articles of Impeachment. They can be used to say to a President: If you don't behave, if you don't cease and desist with what you are doing, then you can be removed from office.

I trust that this will become the message that the President will receive. However, knowing what I know about him, I doubt that he will receive the message as intended. I think that it will cause him to become a greater bully and to do more and say more things that are unacceptable to try to normalize his dictatorial behavior.

It is dictatorial in that he believes that the law should be followed when he sees the law on his side and that it should be somehow avoided when it is not.

Mr. Speaker, dictatorial behavior is the kind of behavior that you see emanating from dictators. I believe that this dictatorial behavior has to be put in check because we have a President who preaches law and order, but he doesn't mean law and order. He means order and law. He means allow me to do whatever I choose and then you find some law to justify my behavior. That is not law and order. That is order and law, and that is what he believes.

I believe that we have to do what I am about to do, and I trust that there will be others who will join in. However, if no one else does, then I want you to know, Mr. Speaker, that while I am censured, I am not silenced and that this is only the genesis of this process.

The revelations are yet to come, and in the revelations, I assure you, Mr. Speaker, we will come to conclusions that will cause this President to be removed.

We are now into the countdown for impeachment. This countdown will manifest itself in articles being brought to the floor of the House of Representatives next week. I fully intend to do so. For edification purposes, that means that I will first notify my colleagues by way of written word that these are my intentions. Thereafter, I will come to the House, and I will read the Articles of Impeachment. After they have been read, some time will pass before they will come back to the floor for a second reading, two legislative days.

At that time, the articles will be read again. I will call for a vote on the Articles of Impeachment. Those who will vote for it will be known as persons who have supported what I believe to be the last effort that we have to prevent this President from becoming a full- blown dictator. He is right now a de facto dictator. He has the potential to becoming full-blown.

What do I mean by de facto?

It is because we are in the nascency of his dictatorship. Someone, someday, will write about the first 100 days of his dictatorship. We are into the nascency of it.

He is testing to see if there are people who have the courage to put him in check. If he doesn't see that, then we will go on to another stage of it.

I am going to come to the floor and read these articles. Then they will be read again a second time. I will ask for the vote.

There will be probably be a motion to table. The motion to table means that if it prevails, then the articles will not go forward and have the debate and proceed to the possibility of a vote on the actual articles. A motion to table is what has happened in the past.

Those who vote for the motion to table will oppose the Articles of Impeachment. Those who vote against the motion to table will be sending a message to the world that they want this to proceed and that these articles ought to be given a fair hearing before this House of Representatives.

The motion to table will ultimately bring us to a decision that we will have to consider. It will be a moment of truth and an hour of decision.

I believe we have to do this. I believe we have to do it because if we are going to wait until there are tanks rolling into major cities, at the capitals of cities, it will be too late.

If we are going to wait until you read and hear about it in some major newspaper that the President has metamorphosed into a dictator, it will be too late. We have to stop him as soon as possible. As soon as possible is the means of doing it by way of impeachment. I believe that he will be impeached again.

I also know this. If we don't, and if he continues in the vein, in the methodology that he has been proceeding with, if he does this, then there is one other last word and that will be: We the people. We the people, with our voices, with our movement, with our peaceful protest, we the people will make that change.

This country will not tolerate a de facto dictator, and it surely will not tolerate, and you should not tolerate, a full-blown dictator. I say a de facto dictator because, in fact, he is a dictator; not announced but that is what he is, ruling by executive order.

This country was not designed by the Framers of the Constitution to be ruled by executive order such that the President would just ignore those orders, let things go all the way to the Supreme Court knowing that he has lawyers with unlimited resources, and those who would challenge him are limited in resources.

So his dictatorial character says to him you can let that go on to the Supreme Court, and you can ignore the court. Flout the orders of the court. You don't have to worry about that. You have got the Treasury of the United States of America backing you. You have got an attorney general who knows nothing but yes. No way to say to you, Mr. President, reconsider.

Your Secretary of State is going to do a similar thing. No one around you is going to challenge you and say to you that this is not the appropriate thing to do. So, yes, he has the characteristics of a de facto dictator with dictatorial behavior being exhibited.

As a result, the moment of truth is upon us. Next week we shall have the opportunity to stand on the principles that I believe were exhibited when we were campaigning, when we were saying this President would harm our democracy, that he was a threat. This will be our opportunity.

I pray that every person will vote their conscience. I am not asking anybody to vote a certain way. I am telling you how I will vote. I speak for no one but myself and those who agree with me, but I assure you that there will be at least one vote to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, and I rise today to initially extend greetings to all, especially those who are traveling over this season of resurrection.

In my church--I am a Christian--we commemorate and celebrate Easter. I want to let everyone know that I appreciate those who do, and to those who do not, I understand.

I also give a special expression of gratitude and thanks to the thousands of persons who have literally called my office, sent cards, greeted me along life's way, to give me a pep talk, or to simply say to me: We appreciate what you are doing.

It means a lot to me to have people that I do not know, many of whom I will never meet and greet, to simply say to me: We want you to continue to do what you are doing.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, I have been censured. I have been censured. I was censured but not silenced. I was censured but not silenced. I am here today because I was censured but not silenced.

Today, as a person who still speaks truth to power, I also speak truth about power. Speaking truth to power is not as difficult as it is to speak truth about power. To speak truth to power, you but only have to go to power and say: There is a problem, and you and I can solve it. That is speaking truth to power.

When you speak truth about power, you go to power and say: There is a problem, and you are it.

I speak truth about power and to power. Today, I am going to speak truth to power as it relates to the President's tariffs.

One has to ponder why the President of the United States of America would put so much emphasis on these tariffs, emphasizing the tariffs for many years, as I am told, but put emphasis on the tariffs to the extent that he nearly drove the economy into a ditch, a colloquial way of saying driving the economy into an area wherein it would suffer greatly.

The President put a lot of emphasis on this. He was just obsessed with the tariffs. We have to ask ourselves why was he obsessed with the tariffs. I am going to answer this question, and I am going to answer this question as it relates to the President's obsession and how it will impact you. It is important for you to understand how this obsession would impact you, how it would impact billionaires, how it would impact your life. I will answer the question how it will impact you.

It is important for me to call to your attention that the President has a book that you are familiar with. It is styled ``The Art of the Deal.''

Well, I introduce you to the President's art of the steal. A steal can be an underhanded way of acquiring something. This is how the art of the steal works. The President, with his tariffs,

will continue--at one point it was going to be unimaginable, but he has reduced it. Let's just say 10 percent. There is a 10 percent tariff.

This tariff is collected at the point of entry into the United States of goods that an importer desires to purvey in this country. He wants to sell it, she wants to sell it, or they want to sell it. They want to sell these goods, so they have to pay this tariff. This tariff has to be paid that the President would add to the goods. Let's say you have something that costs $40,000 coming into the country, a tariff of 10 percent, so that is going to give you an additional $4,000. This additional $4,000 is collected at the point of entry, and the person importing has to pay the tariff.

This is the Trump tariff tax at this point. When that tariff is paid, that money goes into the Treasury of the United States of America, the same place that your tax dollars will go, into the Treasury of the United States of America. The tariff is collected at the port of entry. Let's say $4,000 on a $40,000 item--it is a 10 percent tariff--and when it is collected, it goes again, important to remember, into the Treasury.

Now, that person who imports and has this additional tax now to deal with will do what you will see when you buy something and you are in a State that has a sales tax. You will see that the item costs X amount of dollars. If it is something that costs $40,000 and there is a 10 percent sales tax, then you will see that there is a tax on there, a sales tax of 10 percent, or $4,000.

Well, here is where the stealth comes in. Here is where the art of the steal begins. When the person sells that $40,000 item and has to add that additional $4,000 to it, that person becomes somewhat of a tax collector for the Trump tariff-tax steal. That person who purchased this item, brought it into the country, paid $40,000 for it, and then had to pay $4,000 more, making it $44,000, adds that $4,000 to the product when you buy it. That $4,000 is added.

The unfortunate thing is that it is not done the way a sales tax is done. It is not noted that you are paying it. You pay it because it is a part of buying the product, but there is nothing that will say this is the Trump tariff-tax steal. It won't be there. It is a very stealthy way of doing business.

Most people don't realize that they are paying this tariff, this tax, this steal, if you will. They do, but, again, we really haven't gotten to the essence of what is important here. That money, that $4,000 that was paid at the point of entry, is now collected from you because the person who is selling, purveying, does not want to pay that because they are operating possibly on a thin profit margin. They already have an overhead that they have to consider, so you pay it.

Now it goes into the Treasury, and here is where it gets really stealthy. The steal gets stealthy because at some point, the President is desiring to say that he gave you a tax break, that you got a tax break from the President.

Well, here is the truth. That tax break that you think you are getting or may get and the billionaires will get, that is the money that came out of your pocket.

The President was desiring to get this huge tariff because that would be more money in the coffer coming out of your pocket so that it could then be--some of it--you don't get back dollar for dollar--you might get some of it back. You may not get any depending on your tax circumstance. The billionaires will get plenty. You may not get any.

This is a stealthy way of doing business. It is a steal. This is why it is the art of the steal that has been developed by this President, so that he can take money out of your pocket, put it into the Treasury, and then say later on: You now have a tax break.

I think that people who understand this will understand why tariffs are not always a great benefit to you. They can be a benefit in some circumstances, but remember, the President was putting a tariff on some 90-plus countries. He was putting a tariff on any and every country that he could find a means by which he could tax with a tariff.

Some places didn't have people to actually tax with a tariff, just animal life, but he was desperate because he wants to get money into the coffer, the Treasury of the United States of America, so that he can then say to you: You have now a tax break.

Some of you may--billionaires will--have a tax break, but it is really money out of your pocket that is being returned to you in a diminished fashion. This is the art of the steal as is being perfected by our President.

Our President understands also that there are other ways to get money into the coffer, the Treasury. You can get money into the Treasury by simply having Medicare or Medicaid--have some cuts into these two programs, these two healthcare programs.

This can be done because there has been an indication in this House that some $880 billion will be cut or should be cut or attempted to be cut--I am going to fight it--from the committee that has jurisdiction over Medicaid and Medicare.

You can't cut $880 billion out of the appropriations that will emanate from that committee without cutting into Medicaid or Medicare. You have to do it.

Well, when that is done, that money goes into the Treasury. Now, you add the stealth tax, which was a tariff, and you add the money that you are saving now by putting people who need healthcare in harm's way as it relates to their healthcare, put that money in.

When I say people who need it, I am talking about people who have long-term illnesses and seniors, dual-eligible persons who may qualify for Medicaid and Medicare, so they need these long-term hospitalization programs available to them. That can be cut.

We are talking about the approximately 40 percent of children in this country who benefit from Medicaid at some point in their lives. That can be cut.

These cuts that would impact children and seniors would then go into the coffer. Again, add this to the stealth tariff tax, and you have more money that you can now pass back to people who are going to get a break and say here is what the government is sending you by way of cutting taxes and giving you additional money.

Friends, I conclude that this is a very stealthy way of doing business when people don't always understand. I believe that if people truly understand how the President is amassing this tax break for billionaires, I think they are going to be exceedingly upset.

There are many ways to express how upset you are. You can do this always peacefully. Many are going to protest. Others will do it at the polls. A good many of my colleagues who are participating as persons who are aiding and abetting, if you will, many of them will find, as they are finding out currently, that they are going to be received in less than a very warm way when they find themselves having townhall meetings. They are already experiencing this. That is why many of them are not having their townhall meetings.

They are going to experience it also when we have an election because people aren't going to forget this. They are not going to forget how the President desperately tried to tax them so that he could then return money, some to them if they were qualified but much to billionaires who would qualify.

This is, in my opinion, a shameful and disgraceful way for the President to tell people that they are going to get a tax break when it is really their money that is being returned to them by way of this tariff.

I would also remind people that as we move forward, I have indicated that the filing of Articles of Impeachment is imminent. We are currently in a countdown to impeachment.

Now, those who know me know that I wouldn't say this if I were not going to move on with it, and I am. We will have Articles of Impeachment filed.

I cannot tell you what the vote will be. There are some who would say you shouldn't file the Articles of Impeachment if you can't win. No, you need to know where people stand. You really do. We need to know. I heard a Member just yesterday indicate that we need to have a certain thing brought before the House to understand where people are. It is not unusual for us to have votes to find out where people are on certain issues, and this is no exception.

The first Articles of Impeachment may not succeed, and the second may

not succeed, but having laid the foundation for the President's impeachment in the past, I know that impeachment can succeed.

I also know that should Democrats reclaim the House and the Senate by margins that are sufficient to not only impeach but to convict, I believe that the President can be removed from office.

He talks of having another term. Well, Mr. President, you are not going to have another term. That is not going to happen. I know that you have incited persons to come to the Capitol, the citadel of democracy, and engage in an insurrection. I don't know what you have up your sleeve, but I do know that we will prevent you from having a third term, and the best way to do it is to not have you finish this term. The best way to do this is to have you impeached and convicted and removed from office. It can be done. I am telling you, it can be done.

The law says it can be done. We but only have to have the will to do it. The way is before us. The will is what is necessary to implement the way to an impeachment and a removal of Donald John Trump as President of the United States of America. It would be the appropriate thing because he is unfit to be President, unfit to enforce the laws of the land in such a way as to bring honor to the process--unfit.

When you consistently, repeatedly flout the laws, flout the notion of due process, when you have agents of the State approach a female and approach her with persons who would surround her, and then pull up a mask, and then take her away, all in plainclothes, masks, I don't believe that the American people want to see that kind of episode take place in this country. It looks like we have secret police.

America is not a country with secret police that come and take you away, away from your home to some distant State where you are not known, where you don't have resources, and they don't give you any due process. This is not America.

The President is destroying the lawful, judicious processes that we have enjoyed. He is chipping away at them. If the President can do it for a person who is here for whatever reasons, the President can do it to any one of us, especially when the President believes that you don't have to allow a person to say: ``Hey, you have the wrong person. I didn't do that.'' It doesn't matter because the President believes that he has the sole authority, by and through his agents, to determine who can stay and who must leave. Unfortunately, someone who should be here is not here as a result of the President's behavior.

The President is harmful to the processes that we have enjoyed in this country. He is unfit to be President. He is also unfit because he disrespects the judiciary. When he loses a case, it is always the judge's fault.

What is amazing to me is that I have colleagues who are buying into that, that it is the judge's fault. Let's impeach the judge because it is the judge's fault. It is always the judge. It is never his fault. It is always the judge.

When we start this process of having the person who holds the highest office in the land continually say that judges are not fair when they are dealing with him and things that he would have done, when we allow that, we are now sending a signal to the rest of society that the judges are the reason why we are not succeeding, the reason why we can't have whatever it is that we want and can't acquire, and we have to take it to court. It is always the judges.

At some point, people will have a disrespect for the law and the process that will cause others to disrespect the country. People invest in this country because they know that we have a good judiciary, that it is a process that has been in place and that will be honored. They invest in this country also because they know that your money is safe here. You invest in our bills, our bonds. It is safe.

We have stability except when you do as the President has just done, and that is tariff some 90 countries and do it in such a way as to cause people to start to equivocate when it comes to our bonds, our notes.

When that happens, you can see how the President backs off. He understood finally, at last, that he was making a terrible mistake, and he backed off. He has extended what he calls a 90-day pause, but I don't think he is going to go back to where he was. I don't think he will. Even he understands that he was making a serious mistake.

Here is the problem with that mistake: He has hurt the brand, the American brand. He has hurt the image of the country. He has put the country in a position such that people may no longer think that this is the safest place for their investment dollars. They may not want to buy our bonds as readily. If they don't buy them readily, that would then make it difficult for us to sell them to pay bills.

The President is hurting the image of the United States of America. We are now seen as a country that doesn't honor its word. The President negotiated a trade deal with Canada and Mexico; he breaks the trade deal. The President says that he wants Canada to be the 51st State; Canada is not about to become the 51st State.

I will be quite candid with you, I admire the way the Canadians have made it perfectly clear to the President that this won't happen. Someone has to stand up to him.

He wants to take Greenland. He wants to make Gaza a resort. The President has to understand that he is not a king. He is not the emperor. He is not a dictator. He has awesome power, but he doesn't have the power to just go around people and take what he wants. He doesn't have that kind of power, and we can't let him have that kind of power.

Mr. Speaker, it is important for us to move to impeachment because impeachment is the means by which a reckless, ruthless President can be brought into check. This is the balance that we have. When all else fails, when the Congress majority refuses to act, and when he disregards the orders of the court, impeachment is still available.

Mr. Speaker, I intend to bring Articles of Impeachment. I don't know what the vote would be. My guess is that you are not going to get the vote required, but you will get the opportunity to see who believes in what we have said.

We said that the President was a detriment to democracy. We talked about how he would harm the country if he got back into office. Let's find out if we meant that. One of the ways we will find out is with Articles of Impeachment.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to serve my country. I am proud to be an American. It means something to me. I want to protect what this country stands for in a positive way, the positive image that our country has had. I am trying to change the negative image to a positive, but I want to protect that. It means something to me to be an American.

Mr. Speaker, I want this country to be the one that people look up to, as opposed to frowned upon. Many do now because of the way our President behaves.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that I am censured but not silent, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain why new moms cannot proxy vote. The issue is very simple, and the answer is even simpler to understand. It is because men don't have children.

If men had children, there would be proxy voting. After all, it was over 100 years that this facility was in place, and we did not have a facility for ladies, a ladies' room.

Men have taken for granted the needs of women, and if women would but only stand up across the board in this House, if all the women would, we could get this done, but there are some women who are still siding with men, who don't want women to have the right to vote when they are new moms.

I am saying ``new parents'' now, but I am talking about moms. I think every man has a good reason to want to do this because you ought to respect the person who carried you for 9 months, labored with you, and gave you the breath of life. It is time to make a change.

Mr. Speaker, proudly I stand here today proudly to say: And still I rise.

And still I rise, a proud, liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, and still unafraid. And still I rise, Mr. Speaker, not only as a proud, liberated Democrat, but also, Mr. Speaker, censured, not silenced, censured but not silenced. I still carry my cane, which has been called many things, but for me it provides comfort.

It provides comfort because I am a believer in the 23rd Psalm, that part about ``Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . . Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.''

This is my comfort.

Mr. Speaker, there are people who don't believe that I should have the free speech that the Constitution affords me, and I am not always in the company of people who can protect me. So my cane has become my staff and my rod that comforts me, Mr. Speaker.

I wish it were different, but it is not. We seem to live in a society now where if you are willing to speak truth to power there are consequences beyond simply having those who differ with you give their retorts. There are some who want to do more than give retorts. So we have to find ways to comfort ourselves when we no longer have those who are assigned the responsibility of providing us comfort. Protection is another way of saying comfort.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I want to expose what has been called to our attention in many different ways over the last many hours.

Mr. Speaker, we are at this moment in our country engaging in a big lie coverup. It is a part of a chat-gate, a big lie coverup.

Chat-gate, Mr. Speaker, is a security breach not defined as such because the person who would define it as such, if he should do so, would inculpate himself. So the Secretary of Defense, who has the responsibility of defining whether certain information is classified or not, chooses not to define that which is intuitively obvious as classified, he chooses not to define it as classified. He does not want to inculpate himself. So he has the ability to exculpate himself by simply saying something that clearly is classified saying that it is not.

Mr. Speaker, while he can say so, I think the American public will have the final word and will be the final judge.

I am honored to tell you who the players are in this coverup. One person is, quite frankly, a person who merits a lot of accolades. He is a person who ought to be acknowledged for the courage that he has demonstrated. He is a person who brought this to the attention of the public. He is a person who had no desire to be a part of this coverup, but he is only there in that he was the person who, in a sense, acts as a whistleblower. I am talking about Mr. Goldberg with The Atlantic magazine.

Mr. Goldberg is the person who had messages sent to him that he did not seek and that he did not ask for. According to the reports that I have read and you have probably seen and heard televised, he was there minding his own business when he received messages, messages that were intended for a select group of people, many of whom I will name in just a moment.

In receiving these messages, he was made privy to information that should not have been exposed to the public. In the opinion of many experts, they should not have been exposed to the public.

I will read some of the information that was captured by Mr. Goldberg.

Mr. Goldberg captured this, and this comes from The Atlantic magazine. They published this information. It has been made public. My belief is that the persons who engaged in this coverup had no desire to have this published, but once it was, there was a decision made by the person who had the power to do so to say: Well, it is simply not classified information, so no big deal.

Here is the big deal. Mr. Goldberg indicates that at 11:44 a.m. eastern time--he gives the name of the person, it is the Secretary of Defense, posted in the chat in all caps: ``TEAM UPDATE:'' Then, Mr. Goldberg indicates that the text beneath this began: ``TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED''--with, it says w--``w/ CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.'' We are a go for mission launch.

Let's go on. These are excerpts. I shall not read it all.

The next comment reads: ``1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)''.

Thereafter: ``1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)''.

Thereafter: ``1536: F-18 2nd Strike Starts--also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.''

Now, all of this was intended for a select group of people. It was not intended that this be published, but since it has been published, the Secretary of Defense has indicated that this was not classified information. Now, if the Secretary of Defense who was a participant in this chat, what I call the ``chat-gate,'' if the Secretary of Defense sincerely believes that this is not classified information--and there is more of it, I have only read you some excerpts--if he sincerely believes this, then he is not the person who should be charged with the responsibility of making a decision as to whether this type of information is classified.

That is because there is no way a person who has intelligence at heart and an understanding of it within the mind to conclude that this is not classified information.

Too many experts differ with him. We had persons who are on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the House to indicate that this was clearly classified information. In fact, they indicated that things that are less serious in nature have been classified. But the Secretary of Defense has the ability to exculpate himself, so his exculpatory statement is that this is not classified information.

I believe that if any other person beneath the Secretary of State had allowed such information, the same information, to be exposed to the public, then I don't think the Secretary of State would have come to the same conclusion.

The Secretary of State has sacrificed his honor and his dignity by indicating that this is not classified information. But he didn't do it without the aid and comfort of some others.

Let's just talk about the other people who were on this call--pardon me--this chat with the Secretary of State:

We had the Vice President of the United States of America as a part of the chat. Now, I don't believe that the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President of the United States would get on a chat and have this type of information that I have called to your attention much more available, they would not get on a chat and have this be exposed to the public. There was no desire that it be exposed to the public. They said it is sensitive information. It is sensitive because it is classified information that has not been declared such because it would inculpate the Defense Secretary.

So you have the Vice President of the United States on the chat, then you have the CIA Director. Now it is the Vice President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, and the CIA Director, and this is not classified information that they are discussing. They are just having a little talk that could be exposed to the public, but they chose not to but for it having been sent to Mr. Goldberg.

Mr. Goldberg, by the way, deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor. He is the hero in this story. He is the person who has had the courage and also the wisdom and insight to understand that before you release this, you need to do some checking. So he did his due diligence before releasing information.

Mr. Goldberg, the person who released it, has been called many names by people who would not have him release the information. Mr. Goldberg has been scorned. He is a person who called to our attention something that was done improperly, and yet he is being made the villain. He is not the villain. He is the hero in this process, and he ought to be acknowledged as such.

I am going to have a flag flown over the Capitol of the United States of America in honor of Mr. Goldberg for what he has done. I will not allow his reputation to be tarnished without a fight to protect it. I am going to do what I can to protect his reputation.

So we have the Director of National Intelligence on the call, on the chat. The Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of State were on the chat.

Again, the Defense Secretary, the Vice President, the CIA Director, the Director of National Intelligence, and also Special Envoy Witkoff were on there. Witkoff was on there, and by the way, he was in Russia at the time he was on. We all know that you should not be on an unsecured line if you are going to be in Russia talking. Those of us who have been to Russia are very much aware. Of course, the Secretary of State was on.

These are the players. All of them were on a chat and all of them are engaged in the coverup of this big lie. It is a coverup because they all have at one time or another implied or stated explicitly that this was not classified, that this was not classified. They had the cover of the Secretary of Defense to give them this opportunity to contend that it wasn't classified because he had to protect himself. To protect himself, he declassified what should have been classified. He avoided being inculpated by declassifying this information that should have been classified.

Now, this is egregious. It is always said that the coverup is more egregious than the action that precipitates the coverup. It is true. The coverup is more egregious than the action that precipitates the coverup. There is something that occurred here that is more egregious than the action that precipitated the coverup, than the coverup itself, and that thing is the ability of all of these actors to do this and commit any Federal crime with impunity. As a matter of fact, we could say it is with immunity.

These actors, these participants, they all have the blessings of the President of the United States of America. The President of the United States of America is now under the impression that he has absolute immunity, knowing that he is not likely to be prosecuted for anything other than impeachment while he is holding the office of the Presidency. Knowing this, believing he has absolute immunity and having already demonstrated that he will accord exoneration by way of pardon to people who would assault the citadel of democracy, the Capitol of the United States of America, assault it, and he, the President of the United States, used his awesome pardon power, the awesome power accorded him in good faith under the Constitution of the United States of America, he uses it to release, and to a certain extent to exonerate, a limited extent, persons who actually assaulted the Capitol.

Now these participants in this event, they know that they have got the President backing them up. They know that even if they commit a Federal crime all the President has to do is pardon them. It is really that simple. You have got a President now who sits on high, understanding that all beneath him, all of his minions, all of his plutocrats and others who are beneath him, he has the ability to protect them from breaches of the Federal law.

This is more egregious than the action that precipitated the coverup and the coverup itself, to know that we now have an administration where all of the parties involved can rely on one person to protect them regardless as to what they do if it is a Federal offense.

Yes, there was a coverup.

Yes, that coverup is something that they understood they could get away with even if they were caught red-handed. They knew they could get away with it because they knew that the President was there to back them.

By the way, the President is also there to do what he normally does, and that is throw his acolytes, his underlings, his persons who are beneath him, if you will, throw them under the bus, and he did. He threw them under the bus. He doesn't know anything about this. He just happens to have heard about it. The President gets briefings on all important issues, but for him to sit and say, oh, I know nothing about it, which is what he always does, and then he pushes someone else under the bus, but he knows that he can push them under the bus and then extricate them because he has the magic wand, the power to pardon. He will use it, as has been demonstrated by his causing many persons who assaulted the Capitol, persons who came here with gallows, persons who came using flags and trying to stab and all sorts of sprays, persons who came into the Capitol and defecated, he caused all of these persons to be released, if not all, I would say to you nearly all. I don't have the exact numbers, but he went on a rampage and just started pardoning people who engaged in this assault on the citadel of democracy.

We have ourselves now a circumstance where people who are trusted with the Nation's most sacred secrets--sacred, they are so important that they are really sacred, sacred secrets--these persons have demonstrated that they will forfeit their dignity, their self-respect, and their honor. They will forfeit these things to protect themselves and to protect the President, themselves and the President.

What we have when this occurs with all of these people doing this, we have now a group of people who have sacrificed their honor. When you sacrifice your honor in this fashion, the people who serve under you lose respect for you. They lose respect for you. There are men and women, persons in our military, who no longer respect the persons who serve in these high and lofty positions. They don't respect them because they are persons with a reasonable amount of intellect, superior intellect, and understand that this whole scenario, this fiasco, this level of buffoonery, they understand that this is not based on truth to say this was not certified, this was not classified information. It wasn't certified as such, but it was classified. The only reason it was not certified as such is because the Secretary of Defense would inculpate himself if he should do so. He would put himself in harm's way.

He chose to keep himself out of harm's way. His cohorts agreed with him. They all now are going to contend that there is nothing to see here, just a chat between persons who happened to want to discuss sensitive information, and the reporter who reports it, he is the culprit in all of this.

The people who serve in our military, they know better, and they know now that the people at the top are not honorable people. That has an impact on morale. Don't you think for one second that someone in the military will not at some point in time use the same argument that you are using. They are going to mention how this very incident occurred and how people just walked away from it unscathed. That is what they will do. People are not going to allow this to just be a one-off. If something happens and they should be charged and they believe this scenario can aid and comfort them with their defense, they will use it.

We now have at the highest levels of our government people who have given up their dignity, their self-respect, and they no longer have the honor and respect of a good many people that serve under them.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very sad time in the history of our country, very sad. Here is a final reason why it is sad. I was silenced in a sense when I was shouted down by my colleagues. They shouted me down when I was trying to explain to the President--I never called him a name. I merely said to him: ``You do not have a mandate, you do not have a mandate'' to cut Medicaid. My colleagues were shouting loudly to prevent my voice from being heard, at least that is the way I received it. So I repeated what I said. Their voices grew louder. I repeated it again, and I was removed. I am not mad at the Speaker. I am not angry with them. I am not angry with anyone. I was censured for what I did. I was censured, not silenced. My voice will not be silenced. I was censured, but not silenced.

Here is the point: What I did this Congress decided--not all, not all, let me not include everyone, but all of my colleagues across the aisle and 10 colleagues from this side of the aisle, they decided that I should be censured. I hold no animus toward any of them.

I want to make a point. The President of the United States and his men and women are now going to perpetrate this coverup and walk away unscathed except for loss of dignity, self-respect, and honor.

Mr. Speaker, I would rather be censured than lose my dignity, sacrifice it, my self-respect. I admitted that I did what I did intentionally. They won't admit that they were in this chat and that it should have been in a much more secured location. They won't admit it. They don't have the self-respect and the dignity to just tell the truth about what happened. I admitted that I did it intentionally. I said that when you do things and you do them with intent and if it is a form of protest in my case then you have got to be prepared to suffer the consequences. I have been prepared to suffer the consequences. It doesn't mean that I agree. You don't have to agree with the consequences you suffer, but you have to be prepared. They chose not to be prepared, chose not to suffer any consequences by covering up with a big lie.

I respect Mr. Castro. I saw him. When he questioned those persons who were before him yesterday and when he questioned them about this he called each name--I have such great respect for Congressman Castro. He had the courage to tell them to their faces that they were lying. It takes courage to do what he did. Courage is what is missing. You have got to have courage if you want to make big change. You have got to be willing to stand and say it as he did. This is not to say that others did not deliver great commentary. I singled him out because of the way he did what he did and in the presence of the people. He didn't wait until he was out behind their backs to say what he said. He said it in front of their faces. In my neck of the woods when you tell a person something to his face or her face or their face, that says something about you as a person. This is why I wanted to tell the President to his face that you don't have the mandate to cut Medicaid and Medicare, by the way, as well, and Social Security. He doesn't.

All of this, all of this, this censure of a person for speaking out against a President who, by the way, on that same evening called Democrats lunatics--there was no censure of the President, no reprimand, nothing said from the House, just the President being himself. Others on the other hand can be censured for calling things to the President's attention. I am also the only person to have ever been removed, evicted from a joint session of Congress, the only one.

I am only saying this because I don't want anyone to believe that this censure and this eviction is the end of the story. It is just not.

I am grateful to all of those who have been kind to me and for the well wishes that I have received and all of the persons who have indicated that they would have me speak at various events.

I am grateful to you, but I want you to know that the story does not end with the censure, just as the story with these persons who engaged in this coverup will not end with them simply saying that this was not classified information. It will not.

The story is still unfolding and still being told. In the end, posterity will judge all of us. Posterity will see and know the truth. Time tells. History judges. The truth is known. The truth will be known.

At some point, someone is going to reveal even more information about what happened on that chat. It will happen maybe not now, maybe not this year, but at some point in time, the story is going to be told. All of them will have to face a shaming that they have tried to avoid by contending that classified information was not such.

You cannot get away with this kind of thing. ``The arc of the moral universe . . . bends toward justice.'' What you have done is unjust, and it will be told. The story will be told truthfully.

I close with this: We who are given the honor of serving have been accorded the trust of the public. It is said that we hold public trust. When we hold public trust and we make mistakes, believe it or not, you can say that you made a mistake, or you can say: I didn't make a mistake. I did this intentionally, and I am going to suffer consequences. I am prepared. I may not agree with them, but I am prepared.

We hold public trust. Those persons who participated in this coverup are not persons worthy of holding public trust.

Mr. Secretary of Defense, you, sir, should not hold public trust. You are not the person to determine whether something is classified or not. You have demonstrated, wittingly or unwittingly, that you are not capable of doing it. You just don't have what it takes within to speak the truth when you have committed a transgression. You shouldn't hold public trust.

Sir, you should do the honorable thing. You should resign. If you don't resign, the people of this country, notwithstanding all of the President's power, the people of this country, we the people, will have the last word.

You are going to see protests. You are going to see more protests because we the people refuse to allow coverups to go unnoticed. You are going to see more protests, but I say to everybody: Make it a peaceful protest. Do not protest in any way other than with peace in your mind and your head and your heart.

Peaceful protests. Peaceful protests can make a difference.

It made a difference for the farmers when they came here with Tractorcade and protested their farmlands being foreclosed on.

It made a difference when the military veterans came to Washington, D.C., to protest the bonuses that they were promised.

It made a difference when Dr. King came here and stood on the Mall and read his ``I have a Dream.'' Actually, he didn't read it. He actually stated it, his ``I have a Dream'' speech, when he gave that ``I have a Dream'' message.

It makes a difference. Peaceful protest makes a difference. It is as American as the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock.

Peaceful protests will continue. I will be a part of it. If I should get in the way, as John Lewis says it, I will be prepared to suffer the consequences, but I refuse to give up my right to protest. We the people will have the last word.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.