Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) said she favored an impeachment inquiry but did not favor the House impeaching President Trump, providing a different view from her Democrat colleagues onstage at the fourth Democrat debate.
“If impeachment is driven by these hyper-partisan interests, it will only further divide an already terribly divided country,” she said.
She also pointed out what many Republicans have in the past — that Democrats have tried to impeach Trump since he won the election.
“Unfortunately this is what we’ve already seen play out as calls for impeachment really began after Trump won his election, and as unhappy as that may make us as Democrats, he won that election in 2016,” she said.
Gabbard said, however, “serious issues” have been raised around Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky but that the investigation should “play its course.”
“Serious issues that have been raised around this phone call that he had with the president of Ukraine and many other things that transpired around that are what caused me to support the inquiry in the House, and I think it should continue to play its course out to gather all the information, provide that to the American people, recognizing that that is the only way forward,” she said.
She recognized the political peril Democrats are potentially putting themselves in by supporting impeachment.
“If the House votes to impeach, the Senate does not vote to remove Donald Trump, he walks out and he feels exonerated, further deepening the divides in this country that we cannot afford,” she said.
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