Rep. Maxine Waters, a vocal critic of President Trump and a frequent target of his ire, on Sunday called him a “criminal” who should face articles of impeachment.
“The president is a criminal. The president worked with Cohen, instructed him to go and pay these women to be quiet, to shut them up,” the California Democrat told MSNBC, referring to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer. “The president was not just simply complicit in all of this, he is the one that initiated this with his attorney. This criminal must be brought up by the Congress of the United States for impeachment. And if we don’t … we’re derelict in our duty.”
Waters’ comments follow federal prosecutors in New York Friday filing a sentencing memo recommending that Cohen spend a “substantial” amount of time in prison for a range of charges, including two related to efforts ahead of the 2016 election to silence women such as porn star Stormy Daniels from going public about their alleged extramarital affairs with Trump years ago. Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York on Friday also asserted that Cohen told them he had committed some of the crimes “in coordination with and at the direction of individual one,” who is widely believed to be Trump.
Despite the evident reticence of many of her Democratic colleagues to commence impeachment proceedings against Trump when they seize power of the House in the next Congress, Waters was adamant they must try to boot the president from the White House.
“There are some who say it would be too disruptive, we’ve got too many other things to do. I have said over and over again we can walk and we can chew gum at the same time,” said the California Democrat, who will likely be the next chair of the House Financial Services Committee. “We cannot continue with the president who lies.”
Waters and Trump have publicly traded barbs at speaking engagements, during cable news appearances, and on social media since the president won the White House in 2016. Trump has returned Waters’ criticism by describing her as “low I.Q.” on multiple occasions. The rhetoric between the pair has been blamed for a number of threats the congresswoman has received on her life, while others attribute many incidents of political incivility targeting Trump administration officials on Waters’ repeatedly barbed remarks.
