Nadler: ‘There certainly is’ justification for impeaching Trump – POLITICO

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said on Friday that there “certainly is” justification for launching impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, but cautioned that the public first must agree that it’s warranted.

“Impeachment is a political act, and you cannot impeach a president if the American people will not support it,” Nadler (D-N.Y.) said during an appearance on WNYC. “The American people right now do not support it because they do not know the story. They don’t know the facts. We have to get the facts out. We have to hold a series of hearings, we have to hold the investigations.”

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Nadler emphasized that he intends to use the next few weeks to bring special counsel Robert Mueller’s report “to life,” providing for a television audience the dramatic evidence that Mueller compiled about Trump’s efforts to thwart the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Part of that will include testimony from Mueller himself, Nadler said, even if Mueller sticks to his promise to limit his comments to the findings of his report.

Nadler said revealing Mueller’s words and findings to a television audience would educate Americans about the president’s conduct in a way they haven’t been to this point.

“Part of the function of Congress, just the same as the Watergate hearings 40 years ago, [is] to have a dialogue with the American people so people can make informed decisions and know what’s going on,” he said. Nadler added, “It’s very important that he, to a television audience and to the American people, state it and answer questions about it, even if there is no new information.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far firmly resisted mounting calls from Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, worrying that such moves could endanger vulnerable House Democrats and arguing that the House must continue to investigate Trump.

But 11 of the 24 Democrats on Nadler’s Judiciary Committee — which has jurisdiction over impeachment — have already demanded Democrats begin proceedings to remove the president, and that number has risen sharply in recent weeks. Nadler said he intends to confer with them and other Democrats next week to determine whether an impeachment inquiry would be an appropriate step.

Nadler’s comments also reflected his colleagues’ deep frustration that the White House has been resisting myriad Democrat-led investigations into Trump’s actions and personal finances, to the point of slowing them down — a fact that has pro-impeachment Democrats worried that the window for impeaching Trump will close as the 2020 presidential campaign gets to full speed.

But Nadler said there might be a reason to seek Trump’s impeachment in 2020, even with the presidential election underway.

“There might still be a point to it. That point is to say to future presidents you cannot do this, to vindicate the Constitution and say there’s certain things that can’t be done,” he said, adding, “Even in those circumstances, it might be well worth carrying on impeachment.”

Nadler also said he believes Mueller could have stated whether Trump committed obstruction of justice — despite Mueller’s reliance on the Justice Department’s longstanding policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.

“I think that he could’ve accused him anyway,” Nadler said. But, he added, “that is his interpretation of his ethical duty under the Justice Department guidelines.”

Mueller also stated that he believed it would have been unfair to accuse Trump of a crime if the president cannot defend himself in court. Instead, Mueller said that “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing” — a reference to impeachment.