House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi denounced Republican chatter about impeaching Hillary Clinton as “a brazen attempt” to defy the results of the presidential election.
“In addition to there being no grounds for impeachment to begin with, moving to impeach President Hillary Clinton for alleged activities from before the election would be a brazen attempt to nullify the vote of the American people, outside our constitutional framework and destructive to the Framers’ intent,” the California Democrat said in a Thursday statement.
FBI Director James Comey notified lawmakers last week that investigators have reopened the investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server after finding a new batch of emails “pertinent” to the previously completed probe. The prospect of her winning the White House with that investigation underway prompted some Republicans to talk about impeaching her.
“But assuming she wins, and the investigation goes forward, and it looks like an indictment is pending at that point in time under the Constitution the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial,” Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Wednesday. “They would go to the Senate and impeachment proceedings and removal would take place.”
Pelosi accused Republicans of running the same playbook they turned to in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice during the investigation of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
“The American people want Republicans to accept the will of the people and take impeachment off the table,” she said. “Responsible Republicans must do so immediately.”
Other Republican leaders have pushed back against McCaul’s comments. “Well, I think that’s premature myself, to be talking about that, because of course she hasn’t been elected or sworn into office,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday. “And unless there is some additional evidence that the FBI director and the DOJ would take to a grand jury, then she is not likely to be convicted of a crime.”
Rep. Darrell Issa, a scourge of the Obama administration when he led the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was even more forceful in criticizing the idea.
“OK, I’m gonna say, be the adult in the room and say, ‘Calm down, back off, it’s not gonna happen,'” Issa 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.”
