House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi suggested Wednesday that a GOP-led Congress could move to impeach Hillary Clinton if she is elected president, as they did to Bill Clinton in 1998.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said Republicans have hinted as much this election cycle by advocating for “checks and balances” in a divided government, which she said is a “code word for obstruction or something worse.”
Pelosi pointed to the GOP making a similar argument in 1996 when GOP presidential nominee Robert Dole appeared headed for defeat.
“When it became apparent he was not going to win, the Republicans started talking about checks and balances,” Pelosi said, recalling the Dole-Clinton race. “And you know what that translated into? Impeachment of the president of the United States.”
The House voted to impeach Bill Clinton over charges of lying to a grand jury and obstruction of justice relating to his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Both House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have promoted a message of keeping the House and Senate in GOP hands in order to provide a check to a Democratic-controlled White House should Clinton win. Neither has mentioned impeachment.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., rejected Pelosi’s claim.
“Respectfully, Minority Leader Pelosi, those checks and balances are what separate our job as lawmakers from punditry or blind political cheerleading,” he said in a prepared statement. “Checks and balances aren’t code, they’re what give our constituentsthe American peoplea voice in a city full of unelected bureaucrats.”
Pelosi said Ryan’s talk of checks and balances is also “an admission on the part of the speaker that Donald Trump is here today and gone tomorrow.”
Trump is trailing Clinton by several points in national and many battleground state polls with about three weeks left until the election.
But Trump’s performance on Nov. 8 could impact lower-ballot races. The Senate, now controlled by Republicans, could flip to Democratic control depending on the winners of more than a half-dozen toss up races.
House Democrats, largely sidelined in the minority, could pick up seats in the double-digit range and there is even talk by senior party members that they could win the 30 seats needed to reclaim the majority. Pelosi downplayed that possibility on Wednesday and repeated one GOP analyst’s projection of a possible 25-seat gain for Democrats.
“We are good,” Pelosi said. “I’m good. I’m here. I think we are in a good place.”
