April 22 (UPI) — Democratic heads of three House investigatory committees said Sunday impeachment of President Donald Trump could be a possibility after the release of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., told CBS News’ Face the Nation he “can foresee” the possibility of impeachment coming in the wake of the 400-page report on potential collusion and obstruction of justice by Trump and his campaign in relation to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, but he is “not there yet.”
“The Mueller document has now left us with a roadmap to go forward,” Cummings said. “I think he basically said to us as a Congress, it’s up to you to take this further with regard to obstruction and other matters that might come up.”
Cummings added that Congress must be “very careful” about impeachment, but “history would smile upon us for standing up for the Constitution” if the Democratic-held House votes for impeachment, but it is shut down by the Senate.
“If we do nothing here, what is going to happen is that the president is going to be emboldened. He’s going to be emboldened because he’s said, ‘Well, I got away with that,'” said Cummings. “We cannot afford that. Our Democracy cannot afford that.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday called for the House to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump on charges of obstruction of justice.
“To ignore a president’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country,” she wrote on Twitter. “The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told ABC News’ This Week that Warren was correct that the level of evidence in Mueller’s report is “serious and damning” and would be “within the realm of impeachable offenses.”
Schiff said that despite that evidence, Republican Congressional leaders would make the prospect of impeachment unlikely.
“We are, unfortunately in an environment today where the GOP leadership, people like Kevin McCarthy, are willing to carry the president’s water no matter how corrupt or unethical or dishonest the president’s conduct may be,” he said. “In those kind of circumstances, when Mitch McConnell will not stand up to the president either, it means that impeachment is likely to be unsuccessful.”
Appearing on NBC News’ Meet the Press, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said that “obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable.”
He added however, that he doesn’t believe the committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment proceedings, is going to do that at the moment.
“We may get to that. We may not,” Nadler said. “It is our job to go through all the evidence, all the information we can get, and to go where the evidence leads us.”
Trump dismissed the report as “nothing but a total ‘hit job'” on Twitter early Sunday morning.
“Despite no collusion, no obstruction, the radical left Democrats do not want to go on to legislate for the good of the people, but only to investigate and waste time. This is costing our country greatly and will cost the Dems big time in 2020!” Trump wrote.
Appearing on This Week, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway echoed Trump’s sentiment, saying the report didn’t come to the conclusion that Trump committed a crime and that he would not be impeached.
“The president is not going to jail,” Conway said. “He’s staying in the White House for five and a half more years.”
