Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believed the Constitution only allows for current presidents to be impeached by Congress.
Anchor Chuck Todd said, “Do you believe Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense?”
Rounds said, “To begin with, I think it’s a moot point because, I think right now Donald Trump is no longer the president, he is a former president.”
He continued, “Article 1, I think it is Section 6 and 7 specifically point out that you can impeach the president, and it does not indicate that you can impeach someone that is not in office. So I think it is a moot point, and it’s one I think they would have a very difficult time in getting done in the Senate. Right now, I think there are other things we would like to work on. I know the Biden administration would like to have more of their cabinet in place. There are a number of Republicans that feel the same way. We should allow this president the opportunity to form his cabinet and get that in place as quickly as possible. If we start working on an impeachment, which looks like we’re going to end up doing, we’ve only got a couple of weeks to actually work through and allow this president an opportunity to form a cabinet. A lot of us would prefer to maybe work through those issues instead.”
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