Flashback: Jerry Nadler Warns ‘There Must Never Be’ a Partisan Impeachment Effort

Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-NY, looks on as US Attorney General Bill Barr fails to attend a h
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) warned of the dangers of partisan impeachment efforts during former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, cautioning that it would “produce decisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come.”

Nadler adamantly opposed a partisan impeachment effort during Clinton’s scandal, emphatically warning his colleagues that they should not impeach a president without the “overwhelming consensus” of the American people and stressing that “an impeachment supported by one of our major political parties and opposed by the other” will lead to bitterness and divisiveness and cause people to question “the very legitimacy of our political institutions.”

“And we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of the American people. There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment supported by one of our major political parties and opposed by the other,” Nadler said in a throwback clip, which Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS) reintroduced on the morning of the House Judiciary Committee’s first public impeachment hearing:

“Such an impeachment will produce decisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come and will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions,” he warned.

Nadler made, precisely, the same arguments Republicans have made against the Democrats’ partisan impeachment efforts in recent weeks.

Nadler said at the time:

The American people have heard the allegations against the president, and they overwhelmingly oppose impeaching him. They elected President Clinton. They still support him. We have no right to overturn the considerate judgment of the American people. Mr. Speaker, the case against the president has not been made. There is far from sufficient evidence to support the allegations. And the allegations, even if proven true, do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses.

Nadler’s words – that “the American people have heard the allegations against the president, and they overwhelmingly oppose impeaching him” – ring true today. The House Intelligence Committee hearings failed to get the American people on board with impeachment, as witnesses were ultimately unable to demonstrate that Trump committed an impeachable offense of any sort.

Recent polls show that the Democrats’ partisan impeachment efforts have overwhelmingly flopped, with the opposition growing and support falling among independent voters, particularly.

Nadler’s past position stands in stark contrast to his current calls for impeachment:

During Wednesday’s hearing, Nadler praised Clinton for “physically giving his blood” during his impeachment investigation.

“In 1998, President Clinton physically gave his blood,” Nadler proclaimed. “President Trump, by contrast, has refused to produce a single document and directed every witness not to testify.”

As Breitbart News noted, “Clinton provided a sample of his DNA to independent counsel Kenneth Starr as he attempted to back up his claim that he had not, in fact, had ‘sexual relations’ with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.”

However, the blood sample ultimately tied Clinton to the dried semen on Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress “to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.”

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