Thursday on MSNBC, “Hardball” host Chris Matthews weighed in on the revelations of the Mueller report and where this leaves congressional Democrats politically and legally.
Matthews theorized there was a distinction between special counsel Robert Mueller’s legal judgment and what an observer may conclude.
“They can take the obstruction of justice part, they can take elements of the collusion part – clearly, all this ball playing – I think the decision by the Mueller team to say you can’t prosecute a guy who takes some dirt from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2, and uses that as part of a propaganda campaign along the lines the Russians intended, which is to hurt Hillary and help Trump – I don’t see why that’s advancing a conspiracy,” he said. “But I guess that’s their legal judgment. There seems to be a difference between them reporting it for their political purposes and someone in the objective media simply saying, ‘Here’s what the Russians are pushing.’ It seems to be two completely different stories.”
Matthews said impeachment might be required to get to the ultimate determination of wrongdoing, even though there were political implications.
“But what I think it comes down to – let’s face it, Jerry Nadler, who is listening to Nancy Pelosi, and Nancy Pelosi has made a political judgment that without Republican support for an impeachment exercise, she shouldn’t go along with it for political reasons,” Matthews continued. “In other words, if you can’t make the case in a bipartisan fashion, don’t make it because it will only serve the purpose of hurting yourself politically,” he continued. “Now as journalists, as commentators – we can say that’s not really the right way to make a decision because you’ve been saying all along with your questions about Trump and his behavior were non-partisan.”
“You simply want to get the truth and follow the truth,” he added. “But you can’t step back and say, ‘Well, now I’m going to make a political judgment because it’s not in our interest to pursue this in a political fashion if that’s what it comes to. Well, that’s not being consistent. If you’re going after the truth, go all the way to the truth and the way to get the truth is an impeachment exercise. That’s how you get the truth. That’s how you get the subpoena power that will be upheld. I think this Supreme Court will support the right of any Congress to advance the cause of an impeachment after any exercise.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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