House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said impeaching President Trump is “not a priority” for Democrats, even after Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted and his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations.
“Impeachment has to spring from something else,” Pelosi told the Associated Press in a report published Wednesday.
Pelosi advised that Democrats, should they regain a majority in the House after the 2018 midterm elections, allow special counsel Robert Mueller to complete the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
“If and when the information emerges about that, we’ll see,” Pelosi said. “It’s not a priority on the agenda going forward unless something else comes forward.”
[Alan Dershowitz: Trump safe from impeachment so far]
Manafort was found guilty Tuesday on eight counts of bank and tax fraud — charges that did not concern his work with the Trump campaign. A mistrial was declared on 10 other charges.
That same day, Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion from 2012 to 2016, one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, one count of willful cause of unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of excessive campaign contribution on Oct. 27, 2016. The campaign finance violations pertained to payments Cohen made to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. They were paid per the direction of the “candidate” in exchange for their silence.
Pelosi has previously stated opposition to impeaching Trump. In May, she said she didn’t believe impeachment was “a policy agenda” Democrats should capitalize on in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections.
