House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said impeachment proceedings against President Trump are matter of “timing,” saying he wants to wait in order to beef up the vote.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the South Carolina congressman Sunday pushed back on the notion that he doesn’t support impeaching Trump. The Democratic leadership has resisted moving forward but is under increasing pressure to launch the impeachment process.
“I never said he should not be impeached,” Clyburn said. “What I said time and time again is Mueller has developed the grounds for impeachment. The House has to determine the timing for impeachment. There’s a big difference.”
He said he wants to wait for the right timing to begin proceedings but did not give an exact estimate as to when that might be.
“Haste makes waste. Let’s take our time and do this efficiently, not just effectively,” Clyburn said. “All it takes is 218 votes to effectively impeach the president.”
“What Nancy Pelosi is trying to do, and the rest of us in the House of Representatives, is to develop a process by which we can efficiently move on this issue so that when we get to a vote, it would be something that she calls ‘ironclad,’ I call ‘effective,’” he added.
Clyburn also said that the House needs to take its time so that impeachment wouldn’t be considered a “political move” on the part of Democrats.
