Andrew Card, chief of staff for President George W. Bush, said he thinks an impeachment inquiry is warranted but warned that people should wait to see evidence from the probe before making up their minds on impeachment.
Card, who served under Bush from 2001 to 2006, said Monday on MSNBC that politicians on both sides of the aisle have hyperbolized the inquiry and hoped the inquiry would continue forward without becoming more politicized.
“I do think that an impeachment inquiry is warranted,” Card, 72, said. “Clearly lines have been crossed. I don’t know if that is an impeachable offense yet, we don’t know yet because most people in Congress have already made up their mind when they haven’t seen any evidence.”
“I want people to calm down, take a look at it, don’t call a molehill a mountain — they tend to do that, there’s hyperbole on both sides,” Card continued, noting the seriousness of the process. “I want to help the president do his job because he’s our president. I also don’t want him to be distracted by others who are trying to undermine him.”
Card said that the inquiry process should be a deliberate one and not tainted by partisanship.
“And I do want the impeachment process, if it’s going to go forward, to be done deliberately, without hyperbole, without exaggeration, and see where it leads,” he added. “Based on the facts, don’t make it about politics.”
Card has mildly pushed back against Trump in the past. He graded Trump’s first year in office a B+ but critiqued him last year for discounting U.S. intelligence during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The impeachment inquiry was launched by Democrats after a whistleblower complaint alleged that President Trump tried to wrongfully pressure Ukraine into investigating aspects of the 2016 presidential election and political rival Joe Biden.
