Rally seeks Trump’s impeachment
They called it “Impeachment Eve.”
Rallies in San Antonio and more than 600 places throughout the country Tuesday evening pressed for President Trump’s impeachment ahead of the House of Representatives’ historic vote.
“Today I’m hoping the world can see that not all of us are willing to be indifferent,” said David Zamora Casas, a Bihl Haus Arts artistin-residence who spoke at the rally.
He joined hundreds of others at the federal courthouse in Hemisfair Plaza — along with a handful of counterprotesters — where, as many pointed out, the office of U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, a moderate Republican, is located. Hurd has often criticized Trump but ultimately stated he would vote against impeachment.
“You can’t watch your democracy get destroyed in front of your face,” said Sister Geraldine Klein with the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate. “I’d hate to see young people growing up in this.”
The Democratic-majority House is expected to approve two articles of impeachment.
The first accuses Trump of abusing the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate one of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden — to help Trump win re-election. The second charges him with obstruction of Congress for not complying with House subpoenas during the impeachment inquiry.
Trump has repeatedly characterized the impeachment proceedings as a “witch hunt.” Earlier Tuesday, Trump sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a sixpage letter denouncing the impeachment proceedings — calling it a “partisan, attempted coup” — and disputed the impeachment charges against him.
Amid chilly temperatures, bundled-up crowd members banged ladles on pans and yelled until they went hoarse as they marched down Alamo Street to the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building in front of the Alamo.
“No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!” they chanted.
The signs varied: “Do your job, remove the orange blob” read one.
“The only law he didn’t break was gravity,” stated another.
A woman dressed in a red coat held up a sign that said, “Have yourself a merry impeachment.”
Cities across the country signed on to the “Impeach and remove” movement, which also was dubbed “Nobody is above the law.”
Elizabeth Montgomery pulled her 4-year-old daughter in a cart. Among the chants and cries of the crowd, the girl waved a glow stick in the air, a sign with “Unamerican, unpresidential, unconstitutional” tucked between her legs and another one by her side referring to Trump as a “traitor.”
“She’s been coming to these things since she was 6 months old,” Montgomery said. “She knows who Trump is.”
When asked about Trump, though, the girl replied, “I like him.”
“We haven’t exactly gotten into the details about him yet,” Montgomery said, smiling. “A lot of the issues are really heavy.”
The vote to impeach Trump will be only the third time in history a president has been impeached.
Though it’s expected to pass in the House, the vote in the Republican-controlled Senate, which will take place next year, is expected to fail.
“This isn’t who we are,” Klein said about the Trump administration. “We are good people. We are.”