Poll: 35 percent say impeachment justified

More than a third of all Americans and two-thirds of Republicans believe Congress would be justified in bringing impeachment proceedings against President Obama, according to a poll from YouGov and the Huffington Post released Monday. 

Thirty-five percent of all respondents, including 68 percent of Republicans, say there’s reason for Congress to try to remove Obama from office. By contrast, just 8 percent of Democrats say impeachment proceedings are justified.

{mosads}The results mirror how Americans felt at a similar point during the George W. Bush administration. A 2007 poll from Gallup found that 36 percent of Americans believed Congress had reason to begin impeachment proceedings, including 54 percent of Democrats and 9 percent of Republicans.

Last week, some Republicans — including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — suggested that the GOP should try to impeach the president over his use of executive action.

“President Obama’s rewarding of lawlessness, including his own, is the foundational problem here,” Palin wrote in an essay on Breitbart.

But Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) have rejected that call.

“We are not working on or drawing up articles of impeachment,” Goodlatte told ABC News on Sunday. “The Constitution is very clear as to what constitutes grounds of impeachment for the president of the United States. He has not committed the kind of criminal acts that call for that.”

Overall, a slight plurality — 39 percent — of survey respondents say Obama has not abused his powers as president. By contrast, 32 percent say Obama has abused his powers and should be removed from office, while 17 percent say Obama abused his powers but not seriously enough to justify impeachment proceedings. Some 12 percent say that while Obama’s abuses of power rise to the level of impeachable offenses, Obama should remain in office.

Attorney General Eric Holder scoffed when asked about Palin’s call for impeachment during an interview with ABC.

He quipped that the former Alaska governor “wasn’t a particularly good vice presidential candidate.” Holder said Palin was “an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.”