Tennessee Democrat Files Record 26 Impeachment Articles Against Trump, More Articles Than Andrew Johnson Ever Faced

The math hasn't changed. The list of grievances just got a lot longer.

Since the House voted 232-147 on September 15 to table Rep. Al Green's impeachment resolution against President Trump, Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen has gone in the opposite direction. On September 24, Cohen filed 26 separate articles of impeachment, according to a statement from his congressional office. That's more counts than any impeachment resolution ever brought against a sitting U.S. president, according to International Business Times UK, which notes it more than doubles the 11 articles the House adopted against Andrew Johnson in 1868.

Cohen isn't new to this. He filed five articles against Trump in November 2017 and voted to impeach him in both 2019 and 2020, according to IBT. He also introduced six articles of impeachment against Chief Justice John Roberts back in May, shortly after announcing he won't seek reelection following Tennessee's congressional redistricting, according to the Tennessee Star. Cohen is a lame duck. This resolution is his closing argument.

What's actually in the 26 articles

The allegations, per Cohen's own office and confirmed across Newsweek, Truthout and IBT, span an enormous range: waging war on Iran without congressional approval, "extrajudicial killings" in international waters off Venezuela, deploying military forces against U.S. cities, the birthright citizenship executive order, using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, conditions at El Salvador's CECOT prison, withholding congressionally appropriated funds, mass termination of inspectors general, tariffs imposed under emergency powers, dismantling the Department of Education, political prosecutions of James Comey, Letitia James and Adam Schiff, banning reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, and alleged personal profit from the presidency under the Constitution's emoluments clause.

These are allegations made by Cohen. None of them have been established as fact by any court, committee, or independent finding referenced in the available reporting. Newsweek's own coverage flags this directly, noting the claims "do not themselves establish" wrongdoing.

It's not going anywhere, and Cohen says that's not the point

Republicans control the House. No committee hearing or floor vote on Cohen's resolution had been scheduled as of publication, according to IBT. The most recent test of appetite for impeachment came on September 15, when the House tabled Green's narrower resolution 232-147. Eighteen Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to kill it, including Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, according to Truthout. Another 47 members voted present rather than yes or no, including House Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar.

That vote is the clearest evidence Democratic leadership has no appetite for an impeachment fight it can't win. Cohen's statement suggests as much: "That the sycophantic Republican majority in Congress is derelict in its duty does not mean that I must abandon my responsibilities," he said, adding he hopes a future Congress will "better live up to its duties as co-equal branch of government." His framing positions this as a symbolic marker for history, not a live legislative threat.

The fair pushback

A reasonable conservative critique here is straightforward: stacking 26 articles covering policy disputes over tariffs, immigration enforcement, and troop deployments doesn't turn ordinary executive-power disagreements into "high crimes and misdemeanors." Presidents wage limited military actions, adjust tariffs, and reorganize federal agencies all the time, and courts, not impeachment, are the normal venue for testing whether those specific actions were lawful. Several of Cohen's articles, like the tariff and Department of Education counts, describe policy choices Congress itself could reverse through ordinary legislation rather than removal proceedings. Cohen's own framing, that this is about who "stood up" for history rather than what the House will actually do, underscores that even he is not selling this as an imminent removal vehicle.

The war-powers fight isn't just a Democratic complaint

Cohen's filing isn't the only impeachment action circulating this month. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over military campaigns in Iran, Venezuela, Yemen, and the Caribbean and Pacific, according to Truthout. Massie tried to force a floor vote, but GOP leadership blocked it. Truthout also cites unnamed polling putting support for a Hegseth impeachment at 51 percent, though no pollster or methodology is identified in that reporting, so that number should be read as preliminary rather than settled.

The unresolved question isn't whether Cohen's resolution passes. It won't. It's whether the House Judiciary Committee, now controlled by Republicans, ever schedules so much as a hearing on any of the 26 counts, or whether this joins Green's resolution in the pile of impeachment efforts that never got a committee vote at all.