Rep. Al Green (D-TX) gave a speech on the House floor Monday to express his disappointment in the lack of diversity on the Judiciary Committee's impeachment expert panel.
For the first day of hearings, the Judiciary Committee Democrats assembled a panel that included: Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, Pamela Karlan, a law school professor at Stanford, Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, and Jonathan Turley, a George Washington Law School Professor.
This presented a problem, according to Green, since all of them are white, with only one of them being a woman.
"I rise because I love my country but I also rise today with heartfelt regrets. It hurts my heart, Mr. Speaker, to see the Judiciary Committee, hearing experts on the topic of impeachment, one of the seminal issues of this Congress. Hearing experts, Mr. Speaker, and not one person of color among the experts," Green stated.
"What subliminal message are we sending to the world when we have experts, but not one person of color? Are we saying that there are no people of color who are experts on this topic of impeachment? What is the message that we’re sending?" he asked.
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"Not one person of color among the constitutional scholars," Green continued. "It seems that there’s a desire among some to have the output of people of color without input from the people of color."
Out of the four people on the panel, only Turley has stated that he is opposed to the impeachment of President Trump. Not because he is a Trump supporter, but because he is "concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of evidence and an abundance of anger."
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