WASHINGTON ― Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) earlier this week called recent talk of impeaching Hillary Clinton if she is elected “premature.”
The election is five days away, but a number of Republicans have already begun floating the idea of impeaching the Democrat if she wins the White House. Republican nominee Donald Trump has amped up talk on the trail that a Clinton presidency would lead to a “constitutional crisis” based on the presumption that the FBI’s acquisition of new emails will lead to an indictment.
Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, downplayed some of that talk in a Tuesday interview with “The Wells Report” on 660 AM The Answer.
“Well, I think that’s premature myself, to be talking about that because of course she hasn’t been elected or sworn into office,” Cornyn said. “And unless there is some additional evidence that the FBI director and the [Justice Department] would take to a grand jury, then she is not likely to be convicted of a crime.”
Cornyn criticized Attorney General Loretta Lynch for not appointing a special counsel to lead the investigation and convene a grand jury “because clearly none of us really have the whole story.” CNN first reported on Cornyn’s comments.
Endangered Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), known for his combative relationship with the White House throughout President Barack Obama’s term, also spoke about his Republican colleagues this week, advising them to “calm down.”
“OK, I’m gonna say, be the adult in the room and say, ‘Calm down, back off, it’s not gonna happen,’” Issa said Wednesday on the “Brett Winterble Show” on KFMB San Diego. “The fact is we have impeached and removed from office nine federal judges in our history, no members of the executive branch, not a president, not a vice president, not a cabinet officer, so floating that word is usually a fairly reckless thing.”
“The idea that there is a sort of quick fix and you throw somebody out of office ― it happens in third-world countries. It mostly doesn’t happen in the U.S.,” Issa continued. “I always push back and tell people that’s something you want to reserve for long after the American people are demanding it before you even begin to look at it.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back against talk of impeaching Clinton on Thursday.
“In addition to there being no grounds for impeachment to begin with, moving to impeach President Hillary Clinton for alleged activities from before the election would be a brazen attempt to nullify the vote of the American people, outside our constitutional framework and destructive to the Framers’ intent,” Pelosi said in a statement.
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