A Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday that impeachment shouldn’t be an obsession or a “taboo” as the party ramps up investigations into President Trump and his administration.
“Impeachment should not be a fetish for anybody, nor should it be a taboo, it is part of the Constitution,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Juanita Tolliver on “Rising.”
The Maryland Democrat added that the new House probes are “not an impeachment investigation.”
Top Democrats, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), have expressed a newfound sense of urgency with their investigations into Trump, especially in the wake of explosive testimony from the president’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Nadler, who would oversee any impeachment proceedings, is leading a broad investigation and recently sent letters to 81 individual and entities requesting documents and interviews. But he stopped short of saying Trump’s potential offenses warranted impeachment, adding that such a move is still “a long way down the road.”
Raskin told Hill.TV that “impeachment is the end of a process, not the beginning of a process.”
The Maryland lawmaker called Cohen “the first real refugee” from the Trump administration and said his testimony served as an impetus for a number of new inquiries that must be investigated.
“Michael Cohen was our first witness and the first real refugee from the inner sanctum of the Trump White House and he opened multiple lines of investigative interest and inquiry,” Raskin said.
—Tess Bonn
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