Title: Condemning the inflammatory and racially offensive statement of the President of the United States suggesting falsely a moral equivalence between the domestic terrorist act of lynching and the constitutionally provided congressional impeachment power.
Policy area: Government Operations and Politics

Summary:
This resolution (1) condemns the tweet made by the President on October 22, 2019, drawing a moral equivalence between the exercise of the impeachment power conferred on the House of Representatives by the Constitution and lynching; and (2) calls upon all Americans to read, celebrate, and revere the Constitution.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 731 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 731

  Condemning the inflammatory and racially offensive statement of the 
 President of the United States suggesting falsely a moral equivalence 
between the domestic terrorist act of lynching and the constitutionally 
               provided congressional impeachment power.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           November 22, 2019

Ms. Jackson Lee submitted the following resolution; which was referred 
                   to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
  Condemning the inflammatory and racially offensive statement of the 
 President of the United States suggesting falsely a moral equivalence 
between the domestic terrorist act of lynching and the constitutionally 
               provided congressional impeachment power.

Whereas in February 2014, the military of the Russia Federation, without merit 
        or cause, invaded the eastern part of the free and independent country 
        of Ukraine, including the Donbass region and the Crimean Peninsula;
Whereas the United States, a strategic ally of Ukraine, reacted swiftly to the 
        Russian invasion, condemning the military action in strong and 
        bipartisan fashion, and providing military, humanitarian, and non-
        military financial assistance to the determined but beleaguered nation 
        of Ukraine, which since 2014 has totaled approximately $1.5 billion;
Whereas in September 2019, members of the House of Representatives were alerted 
        to a complaint filed by a whistleblower within the Intelligence 
        Community alleging that on a July 25, 2019, call with the President of 
        Ukraine, the current President of the United States sought to withhold 
        $391 million in foreign military aid to Ukraine unless and until it 
        announced publicly that it was currently conducting corruption 
        investigations against one of the American president's political rivals;
Whereas, on September 25, 2019, the White House released a Memorandum of 
        Conversation in which the July 25, 2019, telephone conversation between 
        the presidents of the United States and of Ukraine was memorialized and 
        which corroborated in all material respects the allegations of the 
        whistleblower;
Whereas the Memorandum of Conversation released by the White House confirms that 
        the President of the United States engaged in behavior that undermines 
        the integrity of American elections, demeans the dignity of the office 
        of the President of the United States, and jeopardizes the security of 
        the United States;
Whereas, on September 24, 2019, the Speaker of the House announced that the 
        House of Representatives would commence an impeachment inquiry pursuant 
        to its constitutional authority under article I, section 2, clause 5 to 
        determine whether in connection with the July 25, 2019, telephone 
        conversation with the President of Ukraine, the President of the United 
        States has engaged in conduct constituting ``Treason, Bribery, or other 
        High Crimes or Misdemeanors'' as specified in article II, section 4;
Whereas, on October 22, 2019, bemoaning his fate, but not regretting his 
        conduct, the President of the United States tweeted that ``All 
        Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here--a lynching,'' 
        thus falsely drawing a moral equivalence between the exercise of the 
        impeachment power expressly and solely conferred on the House of 
        Representatives by the Constitution and lynching, the most heinous act 
        of domestic terrorism and symbolic of one of the darkest and most 
        shameful periods in America's past;
Whereas the statement asserted in the President's tweet is false, inflammatory, 
        racially offensive, unbecoming the Nation's Chief Magistrate but 
        consistent with prior statements the President has made to stoke to 
        division, discord, and disharmony among the American people;
Whereas the current President of the United States burnished his political 
        reputation by claiming falsely for more than 5 years that his 
        predecessor was born in Kenya and not the United States and thus was an 
        illegitimate President;
Whereas the current President of the United States launched his 2016 campaign 
        for the Presidency said of persons from Mexico seeking to immigrate to 
        the United States: ``They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. 
        They're rapists.'';
Whereas the current President of the United States claimed that a Hispanic 
        Federal jurist could not preside over a court proceeding to which he was 
        a defendant accused of civil fraud because ``He's a Mexican.'';
Whereas in January 2018 the current President of the United States is reported 
        to have inquired of his advisors: ``Why are we having all these people 
        from shithole countries come here?'', referring to persons from 
        countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America;
Whereas, on August 15, 2017, the current President of the United States said he 
        regarded as some ``very fine people,'' the neo-Nazis, White 
        supremacists, and Ku Klux Klansmen who descended on the peaceful 
        community of Charlottesville, Virginia, to advocate racism and were met 
        by peaceful counter-protestors;
Whereas in his continuous and determined effort to exacerbate ethnic tensions 
        and racial divisions in the body politic, the current President of the 
        United States is revealing himself to be an unwitting instrument of the 
        plan hatched in Moscow by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to 
        interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign to help elect his preferred 
        candidate and sow discord and division among the American people; and
Whereas statements and actions of the current President of the United States 
        demean the office he holds and falls short of the standard set by the 
        16th President, whose administration was devoted to unity, healing, and 
        ending racial division and who famously foretold in his March 4, 1861, 
        Inaugural Address the reasons why the efforts of the current President 
        of the United States are destined to fail: ``We are not enemies, but 
        friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it 
        must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, 
        stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living 
        heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will swell when again 
        touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'': 
        Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) strongly condemns the false, inflammatory, and racially 
        offensive tweet made by the President of the United States on 
        October 22, 2019, falsely drawing a moral equivalence between 
        the exercise of the impeachment power expressly and solely 
        conferred on the House of Representatives by the Constitution 
        and lynching, the most heinous act of domestic terrorism and 
        symbolic of one of the darkest and most shameful periods in 
        America's past; and
            (2) calls upon all Americans to read, celebrate, and revere 
        the Constitution of the United States, fidelity to which is the 
        surest best means of forming a more perfect union, establishing 
        justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the 
        common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the 
        blessing of liberty to them and their posterity.
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