On Friday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced that she had filed articles of impeachment against current U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in light of his approval to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Rep. Greene took to Twitter to share the documents related to the filing. One of the key remarks in the filing says the impeachment is due to Garland’s personal approval of the raid: “(Garland’s) personal approval to seek a search warrant for the raid on the home of the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, constitutes a blatant attempt to persecute a political opponent.”
Greene further went on to say that the releasing of the search warrant and property receipt is yet another political move, claiming that the release of such was meant to intimidate and harass Trump, who has hinted multiple times that he will be running for president again in 2024. Greene claims in the impeachment articles that the release of the warrant is a move to “potentially disqualify” Trump as a challenger to the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate (presumably Joe Biden). Greene also added that the warrant’s statement that the former president was being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act – from 1917 – was a means of intimidation.
Some say that Garland has reason to detest both Republicans and Donald Trump specifically. Before he left office in 2016, then-President Barack Obama had nominated Merrick Garland to a vacant seat on the Supreme Court (the seat was left open when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died). However, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the confirmation hearings. Instead, McConnell left the seat open until incoming president Donald Trump was officially in office. Trump later nominated Neil Gorsuch.
Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) is co-sponsoring Greene’s Articles of Impeachment, as is Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD).
MTG is known for her outspoken personality as well as her loyalty to President Trump. On social media, many voiced support for her actions while others heaped criticism upon the move: “This is going to literally be seen as a revenge attempt.” Others spoke with support for the move: “This just reinforces the idea that it was strictly political instead of a thorough investigation.”
While some on social media attacked MTG for her efforts, others are still in shock over the unprecedented raid on the personal home of the former president. This is particularly true when citizens consider that Trump had been cooperating with the DOJ and the National Archives. Trump even placed any documents the agencies might find concerning in a separate storage room and placed a specially requested lock on the door of said room. As recently as June, investigators were at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the documents with Trump’s legal team.
Legal scholars such as Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz say that the way in which the raid was handled is concerning. Turley said there are many questions that the public has about how the process went from cooperation in June to a raid by August, and some political pundits have questioned why did they raid Mar-a-Lago nineteen months after Trump left office if the documents were so important.
Greene said in a public video that she introduced the Articles of Impeachment as she believes “we cannot tolerate this in America, where our great institutions are wielded and abused in such a way to impeach people’s political enemies.”
Whether or not these Articles of Impeachment will have any “teeth” remains to be seen. It is still about three months before the midterm elections, and there is no guarantee that the Republicans will take back the House of Representatives (although most projections believe this will happen). After the 2020 election, many Americans – and not just “conspiracy theorists” – are skeptical that the elections in November will be fair, even if they believe that Joe Biden was truly elected president. Many states, in reaction to the 2020 elections, put into place new legislation that would hopefully quell any election tampering.
If the Republicans do take the House of Representatives in November, it is possible that MTG’s Articles of Impeachment may go further in the impeachment process.
