Tuesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” host Wolf Blitzer asked Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) if the public “would really want to go ahead with impeachment” if special counsel Robert Mueller didn’t find that President Donald Trump had committed a crime.
Partial transcript as follows:
BLITZER: If Mueller doesn’t find any underlying crime, do you think the American people would really want to go ahead with impeachment?
HIMES: Well, it’s an interesting question. Without a crime there is no impeachment. So the Constitution is pretty clear that a president is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. We are a long way from that point, Wolf. The president has obviously behaved in ways that have caused a great deal of consternation for a lot of us, but it is really important, particularly as we go into election season, to remember that we cannot let impeachment go the way of the appointment of Supreme Court justices. What I mean by that is becoming just another arena for the partisan battle. You know, the last thing this country needs, and look, I’ll be the first to say I’ve been pretty critical of this president on any number of a dozen counts, but the last thing this country needs is impeachment proceedings that move forward as a matter of course because we don’t like the president. To answer your question, unless there is a very clear crime, impeachment is not something that is appropriate for us to talk about.
(h/t Grabien)
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