Himes: ‘I Don’t Think Any Democrat in the Congress’ Is Less Committed to Impeachment After Last Two Weeks

On Sunday’s broadcast of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) said after two weeks of the public testimony in the House impeachment inquiry, he did not believe “any Democrat in the Congress” was less committed to impeaching President Donald Trump.

Partial transcript as follows:

BRENNAN: We’re back now with the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes. He joins us from his district in Stamford, Connecticut. Good morning to you. Congressman, you- you heard the White House case as laid out by Kellyanne Conway. Is there a chance that the House actually doesn’t move ahead with impeachment?

HIMES:  Yeah. Case is an interesting way to put what Kellyanne Conway just did. I was keeping pretty close track, and I’m pretty sure that every single one of her assertions was inaccurate. Let me give you the big example, and then I’ll come back around to your question. She said, “Hey, nothing happened here. The aide was released and the meeting happened.” Now, you could look this up because I understand that the White House is all about making facts slippery, but both of those things happened. The aide was released and the meeting happened, not in the Oval Office. But the aide was released and the meeting happened after they were caught, after September 9th when the inspector general of the intelligence community came to Congress and said, “There’s this whistleblower complaint.” And the White House, by the way, had seen that complaint. So when the jig was up, yes, then the aid was released once they were caught. But she’s also wrong, just to get back to your question, I haven’t spoken to all 240 or so of my colleagues, but- but I don’t think any Democrat in the Congress looked at what happened over the last two weeks and said, “Gosh, there’s nothing there.” Much to the contrary. Like the American public that was paying attention, my colleagues saw an ambassador fired for corrupt purposes, saw aid being held up, ad by the way, you know, she—

BRENNAN: Yeah.

HIMES: –Kellyanne Conway may quibble about- about what Sondland said. The chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, said there was a quid pro quo, and we should get over it. So, no, there’s not a Democrat who watched the last two weeks and said, “Gosh, this is a weaker case than I thought it was.”

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