Credit: Dana Hutchinson, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
As part of our weekly actions, our members have regular contact with their representatives or staff, sometimes including meetings with those offices. Recently, one of our members had several meetings with the staff for Pramila Jayapal, congresswoman from Washington’s seventh congressional district. As a result of those meetings, they have written this letter to the editor of their local paper. These letters are a crucial part of spreading the impeachment message far and wide, and building up a base of support critical to moving those who represent us to action.
I have recently had two meetings with Representative Jayapal’s Outreach Coordinator to discuss impeachment. In those meetings, I learned that Jayapal would support impeachment if a Colleague had introduced it, but she has no intention of introducing articles of impeachment herself until after the midterm elections.
However, the midterm elections are a year away. In the first year of this administration, we’ve seen the gutting of federal agencies, rampant corruption, the revoking of congressionally appropriated funds, ICE sent into cities, and federal agents murdering people in the streets and in detention centers. We’ve also seen a raid on a Georgia polling site, Trump threatening mail in voting, and threatening to federalize midterm elections.
On February 4th, Jayapal posted on her Bluesky social media account “It is unbelievable that Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and Todd Blanche are continuing to protect predators – redacting their names while exposing the names of survivors and refusing to investigate these pedophiles. The people in these files, who wrote these emails, should be investigated and deposed now.”
Yet she refuses to do the one thing that would lead to investigations – impeachment. She could introduce articles of impeachment and invoke rule IX which allows any member of Congress to force a vote on impeachment, and must be voted on by Congress within two legislative days.
It is Congress’s duty to impeach when the president or a cabinet member commits a crime. I urge Pramila Jayapal, as Chair Emerita of the Progressive Caucus, to introduce articles of impeachment immediately.
A. S.
Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber