Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said lawmakers should “back off” of impeachment threats against Hillary Clinton if she is elected president.
“OK, I’m gonna say, be the adult in the room and say, ‘Calm down, back off, it’s not gonna happen,'” Issa, R-Calif., said during a Wednesday radio interview. “The fact is, we have impeached and removed from office nine federal judges in our history, no members of the executive branch, not a president, not a vice president, not a cabinet officer, so floating that word is usually a fairly reckless thing.”
Issa, who is fighting to keep his congressional seat in a tough re-election race, agreed with many critics of the Democratic presidential nominee that she should be indicted for using a private email server while she was secretary of state. However, the House Committee on the Judiciary member cautioned that pitching her out of the Oval Office once she is elected is something that “happens in third-world countries.”
“But the idea that there’s some sort of a quick fix and you throw somebody out of office, it happens in third-world countries,” Issa said. “It mostly doesn’t happen in the U.S. You know, that’s not to say that it can’t be a tool that’s available. But I would ask everyone to calm down and go back to the basics, which is we have an opportunity at the ballot box to determine whether Hillary Clinton has disqualified herself with her actions. Do that first.”
Issa argued that policymakers should consider all other options before even considering impeachment proceedings.
‘”I always push back and tell people that’s something you want to reserve for long after the American people are demanding it before you even begin to look at it,” said Issa. “And I’ve been there. I’ve voted to impeach federal judges so I’ve been there in that process. It’s long and you need to have the right thing to do it with.”
