By Allan Jamail
On Tuesday, October 1, 2019 at 8:30 AM, at the Houston Police Department’s East Freeway Storefront, Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia provided district and legislative updates.
North Channel Star writer Allan Jamail, covering the meeting, asked Congresswoman Garcia to explain her supporting of the current impeachment inquiry of President Trump. Garcia replied, “When I got elected to go to Washington I never expected to be involved in an impeachment process of a president. Almost every day I hear the President say or do something shocking to me. But the last straw for me was when in a phone call he asked a foreign country to interfere with our elections and to help him get re-elected. That’s a violation of our laws and can’t be tolerated; no one is above the law, not President Trump or any other president.”
“In my life I have taken the oath of office about 15 or more times to protect and defend our Constitution from both foreign and domestic violators. It’s my duty to support the investigation of President Trump, for it’s been alleged that in a phone call he asked a foreign country’s new President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, for political help. This is not about partisan politics; it’s about our rule of law getting violated,” Garcia stated.
As of this writing, four new national polls released in the past two days show at least 50 percent of respondents support the House impeachment inquiry, which was triggered by a whistleblower’s complaint against Trump over his repeated requests for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Biden is the leading Democrat who could be the most likely Democratic Party’s presidential candidate challenging Trump’s reelection in 2020.
Since asking the Ukrainian President to help him politically, Trump recently on October 3rd publicly asked China to investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden. And all four surveys found more Americans back the impeachment inquiry than do not.
Our federal elections law prohibits any person from soliciting, accepting, or receiving anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a US election. The law doesn’t just apply to money — investigations or political dirt that benefits a particular campaign counts as “things of value” too.
The head of the Federal Election Commission, Chair Ellen Weintraub who has served as FEC chair for 19 years and was appointed to the role by Republican President George W. Bush, recently noted that “the law is pretty clear. … It is absolutely illegal for anyone to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with any election in the United States.”
Congresswoman Garcia said when she returns to D. C. she expects the House to address the need to do something about ridding the country of the military style assault weapons that are being sold.
“That’s the main gun the mass shooters choose to use to kill so many people with. These weapons of war are designed to kill our enemies’ on the battlefield, not on our nation’s streets. I’m told you can kill about 12 people in 30 seconds with them. They’re not designed to use for hunting game. As a child I remember our family had a gun to hunt rabbits with. If I shot a rabbit with one of these assault weapons, it would be shredded to pieces,” Garcia said.