More than 100 House Democrats have called for impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump to begin.
The threshold was crossed just days after former special counsel Robert Mueller testified on Capitol Hill about his investigation into Russian election interference. According an NBC News tally compiled by Alex Moe and Kyle Stewart, 104 House Democrats have publicly supported the inquiry, including 12 since Mueller’s appearance. Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan independent who recently left the Republican Party, has also called for impeachment.
Congressional Democrats have been divided over whether to launch an impeachment inquiry. House leadership, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has repeatedly demurred on whether to begin the process.
On Sunday morning, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., told CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Donald Trump “richly deserves impeachment,” but said it was too soon to formally begin the process.
“He has done many impeachable offenses,” Nadler said. “He’s violated the law six ways from Sunday. But that’s not the question. The question is, can we develop enough evidence to put before the American people? We have broken the logjam.”
It is within Nadler’s committee that such an inquiry would start. In court filings submitted late last week to obtain grand jury information from Mueller’s probe, Nadler’s committee wrote that “articles of impeachment are under consideration as part of the Committee’s investigation, although no final determination has been made.”
“There are articles of impeachment that have been recommended to the committee,” Nadler said on Sunday. “And we are investigating and determining whether we should report those articles to the House. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
