Republicans in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives are taking steps towards impeaching Larry Krasner, the far-left District Attorney of Philadelphia, due to his record of soft-on-crime policies that have made the city more dangerous.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, a group of Republicans in the lower house, led by State Representative Martina White (R-Penn.), filed articles of impeachment against Krasner on Wednesday. This comes after a bipartisan majority of the State House gave the House Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order the authority to investigate the causes of the rising crime wave in Philadelphia, and to propose solutions for solving the crisis.
“From the beginning of this process, we have heard devastating stories from victims of crime, businesses who are closing because they do not feel safe, and victims who have been revictimized by a district attorney’s office unwilling to help them when they would rather help criminals,” said State Representative Torren Ecker (R-Penn.). “That is misbehavior in office, for which [Krasner] should be impeached.”
In 2021, Philadelphia saw a record high in the number of homicides, at 562. In 2022 so far, with over two months left to go in the calendar year, police have reported 438 homicides. Krasner, meanwhile, has defended his policies and downplayed the surge in crime.
“The city of Philadelphia cannot afford to wait any longer for us to take action on what we already know to be true: that Krasner is responsible for the rise in crime across our city due to his dereliction of duty to prosecute the guilty and to protect the innocent,” said White in a press conference on Wednesday announcing the articles of impeachment.
The articles will go before the full State House, where only a simple majority is needed to approve them. The matter will then go to the State Senate for Krasner’s trial, at which point two-thirds of all state senators must vote in favor of conviction in order to remove him from office.
Krasner denounced the possible impeachment as a “political stunt” and “devastating to democracy,” baselessly claiming that the move “shows how far toward fascism the Republican party is creeping.”