Include Trump's racism in impeachment, Al Green urges fellow Democrats

An American lawmaker has called on his colleagues to include instances of US President Donald Trump’s racism and xenophobia in impeachment articles.

Texas Democratic Representative Al Green sent a memo to fellow lawmakers Wednesday, arguing that Trump’s behavior is “instigating enmity and inciting violence within our society."

"Why should we pass a resolution condemning the president’s racist comments and then get back to racism as usual, where racism is more of a talking point than an action item?" he wrote.

Green, in part, accused the US president of racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic language.

He made the comments after the House’s impeachment inquiry into Trump shifted to the Judiciary Committee.

The Judiciary Committee was set to hear from four constitutional scholars in its first hearing.

Trump is facing the impeachment inquiry over attempts to find dirt on a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, by pressuring Ukraine.

“Foreign nations don’t have our interests at heart, they have their interests at heart,” said Professor Pamala Karlan of Stanford Law School, one of the scholars attending the hearing, adding that the US founding fathers would “find it unacceptable for a president to ask a foreign government to help them, whether they put pressure on them or not.”

New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries also suggested that impeaching Trump is the “will of the people.”

“The will of the people elected a House that would not function as a wholly owned subsidiary of this administration,” Jeffries said. “The will of the people elected a House that understands we are a separate and co-equal branch of government. The will of the people elected a House that understands we have a constitutional responsibility to serve as a check and balance on an out of control executive branch.”