Washington - A group of Democratic presidential
candidates were divided on Monday over whether Republican
President Donald Trump should be impeached, reflecting a broader
split in the Democratic Party over how to react to Special
Counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian election meddling.
Answering audience questions at a televised CNN event in the
early voting state of New Hampshire, three Democratic 2020
candidates shied away from calling for Trump's impeachment.
Another, California US Senator Kamala Harris, said
Congress should "take the steps towards impeachment" but
believed such an effort would likely fail.
Only one candidate at the event, Massachusetts US Senator
Elizabeth Warren, issued a full-throated call for Congress to
try and remove Trump from office.
"If any other human being in this country had done what’s
documented in the Mueller report, they would be arrested and put
in jail," Warren said. Julian Castro, the former mayor of San
Antonio and another 2020 hopeful - who was not at the CNN event
- has also called for Trump's impeachment.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. at Keene State College during a campaign visit. Picture: Kristopher Radder/The Brattleboro Reformer via AP
In the report released on Thursday, Mueller portrayed a
president bent on stopping the probe into Russian meddling. But
Mueller stopped short of concluding that a crime was committed,
leaving it to Congress to make its own determination as to
whether Trump obstructed justice.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., speaks to people at Edley's Bar-B-Que in Nashville. Picture: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean via AP
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, and some
other Democratic Party leaders have been wary of impeaching
Trump before the November 2020 presidential election.
They believe there are not enough votes in the
Republican-controlled Senate to remove Trump from office, and
that such a move could play into his hands. They also remember
Republican efforts to impeach former Democratic President Bill
Clinton in the 1990s, which backfired politically.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Picture: Charlie Neibergall/AP
But prominent liberals have demanded the start of
proceedings to remove Trump from office since the release of a
redacted version of Mueller’s report last week.
In a letter to fellow Democratic lawmakers on Monday, Pelosi
did not rule out impeaching Trump, but said it is “important to
know that the facts regarding holding the president accountable
can be gained outside of impeachment hearings.” She added that
Trump engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior
“whether currently indictable or not”.
Democratic Presidential Candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority South Central Regional Conference in New Orleans. Picture: Gerald Herbert/AP
Reflecting the divide in the party over how to proceed over
Mueller's findings, the five 2020 candidates, who appeared at
back-to-back events before an audience of young voters, were
also split.
Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said: "If for the next
year and a half all the Congress is talking about is 'Trump,
Trump, Trump,' and 'Mueller, Mueller, Mueller' and we’re not
talking about the issues that concern ordinary Americans, I
worry that works to Trump’s advantage."
Minnesota U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar said she did not want
to "predispose things" over the question of whether to impeach
Trump and left that question up to the U.S. House of
Representatives, where impeachment proceedings are initiated.
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Trump
"deserves" to be impeached, but he would leave it to the House
and Senate. He said politicians have to stop talking about Trump
so much, and the best thing for Democrats would be to deliver
"an absolute thumping" to Trump at the ballot box next November.