Warren: I'm Not Ready to Impeach Trump Yet
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said on “The View” on Tuesday that she is not ready to impeach President Donald Trump.
Co-host Meghan McCain questioned Warren about her desire to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.
“You’ve put forward an impeachment bill in the past,” McCain said. “If Democrats end up taking over Congress, do you think that should be the focus, impeaching President Trump?”
“I take this very seriously,” Warren answered. “This is a serious constitutional move. My view on this is, protect the special prosecutor, let him finish his work without political interference.
“Let him make a full report to the American people and then collectively we can make the decision about what the appropriate next step is. It’s Donald Trump who doesn’t want Mueller to be able to continue an independent investigation and bring it to a conclusion.”
McCain followed up by asking if an impeachment bill was introduced by another legislator, would she support it.
“I’m not there,” Warren replied.
The senator’s answer is consistent with what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer have stated.
When Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green introduced impeachment legislation in December, Pelosi and Hoyer issued a joint statement that said, in part, “The special counsel’s investigation is moving forward … Now is not the time to consider articles of impeachment.”
On “The View,” Warren derided Trump for peddling in “spygate.”
“Nothing has been shown to be true about any of that, he’s just making it up as he goes along,” Warren claimed. “The more he is afraid about what special prosecutor Mueller is doing, the more Trump is worried about where that investigation is going.”
The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberly Strassel and The Washington Post both reported earlier this month that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devon Nunes has subpoenaed the Justice Department for background materials about an FBI informant positioned close to the Trump campaign.
“This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting,” wrote Strassel. “It would also be a major escalation from the electronic surveillance we already knew about, which was bad enough.”
She called out The New York Times last week for trying to downplay the significance of the discovery.
Strassel tweeted that her biggest takeaway from The Times’ story was, “Govt ‘sources’ admit that, indeed, the Obama DOJ and FBI spied on the Trump campaign. Spied. (Tho NYT kindly calls spy an ‘informant.’) NYT slips in confirmation far down in story, and makes it out like it isn’t a big deal. It is a very big deal.”
Obama's spying scandal is starting to look a lot like Watergate https://t.co/DUDjEMM2di via @nypost
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) May 29, 2018
Former Obama administration Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN earlier this month that the FBI “may have had someone who was talking to them in the campaign,” and if the agency did, it was a “good thing.”
He contended that the focus of the informant’s activities would have been on Russia’s attempts to infiltrate the campaign, not the candidate and his staff.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted a quote he attributed to The Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway regarding the surveillance of his campaign.
“This investigation involved far more surveillance than we ever had any idea about. It wasn’t just a wiretap against a campaign aide…it was secretly gathering information on the Trump Campaign…people call that Spying…this is unprecedented and scandalous.” Mollie Hemingway
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2018
“This investigation involved far more surveillance than we ever had any idea about,” Hemingway said. “It wasn’t just a wiretap against a campaign aide … it was secretly gathering information on the Trump Campaign … people call that Spying … this is unprecedented and scandalous.”
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