An elected official from the American hard right, Marjorie Taylor Greene, failed on Wednesday to dismiss the Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, whom she accused of supporting aid to Ukraine.
The parliamentarian, very close to Donald Trump, wanted at all costs to oust this Congress official, a member of her party, whom she accuses of “treason”.
During a speech to Congress, she accused Mike Johnson of financing “forever wars”, while being heavily booed in the chamber.
But this impeachment motion quickly failed, with the majority of Democrats and Republicans voting to keep this leader in office.
“I want to say that I appreciate the vote of confidence from my colleagues to defeat this misguided initiative,” Mike Johnson said in a statement.
Donald Trump reacted to him on his network, just after the vote.
“I love Marjorie Taylor Greene (…) but we are currently not in a position to vote for an impeachment motion,” given the very thin Republican majority in the House, he wrote.
Support for kyiv has been the subject of very heated debates in the American Congress, with many Republicans calling for no more funds to be released to the country, at war with Russia.
But after months of procrastination, pressure from Democrats and allies around the world, Republican leader Mike Johnson finally supported the package – attracting the wrath of the hard right.
Any elected member of the House of Representatives can file a motion to impeach its president.
This saga had an air of déjà vu.
Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy was impeached only a few months ago in a very similar scenario: he was accused by a small group of Trumpists of having concluded a “secret deal” with the Democrats on Ukraine, in the middle of budget negotiations.