Democratic presidential candidates divided over impeaching Trump

President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. Picture: Alex Brandon/AP

President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. Picture: Alex Brandon/AP

Published Apr 23, 2019

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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.

Reuters

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