New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed “leftist” Democrats for pressuring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into moving ahead with a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
“I think we now go to a very long and unproductive road,” the Democrat said Thursday. “Where does it go ultimately? Nowhere, because even if they vote for impeachment, it goes to the Senate and it wouldn’t happen in the Senate.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday the lower chamber would begin a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump, prompted by a whistleblower complaint about his interactions with Ukraine.
Some Democrats have for months pushed impeachment, stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction by Trump. However, Pelosi held firm her stance against it, arguing that it would divide the country.
That changed this week when a transcript of Trump’s July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed the U.S. leader urging his counterpart to investigate Joe Biden, the former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner, and his son Hunter.
“Speaker Pelosi was dealing with pressure from her caucus and pressure from the Left. There is a heightened leftist component to the Democratic Party that she was feeling pressure for,” Cuomo said. “She is a deliberate, responsible person. She is not a knee-jerk person and I think she even resisted the pressure in her caucus admirably for a long period of time.”
