Hillary Clinton backs impeachment inquiry into Trump

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed an impeachment inquiry into President Trump, telling People magazine in an excerpt published Tuesday that she believed it was the appropriate response to allegations Trump pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

“I’m in favor of moving toward impeachment,” she told the magazine. “I did not come to that decision easily or quickly, but this is an emergency, as I see it. … This latest behavior around Ukraine, trying to enlist the president of Ukraine in a plot to undermine former Vice President Biden or lose the military aid he needs to defend against Trump’s friend, Vladimir Putin — if that’s not an impeachable offense, I don’t know what is.”

{mosads}Clinton’s comments came the same day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced a formal impeachment inquiry. 

“The president of the United States is betraying our country on a daily basis,” Clinton told the publication, adding, “This man who is in the Oval Office right now is a clear and present danger to the future of the United States.”

Clinton denounced Trump as a “corrupt human tornado” in her remarks to People, adding that he was “undermining the more perfect union” of the U.S.

The former secretary of State and presidential candidate’s call for impeachment came after a flood of similar endorsements from moderate holdouts within the party, many of whom are defending competitive House districts in 2020.

Longtime impeachment skeptics who endorsed an inquiry Tuesday in addition to Pelosi included Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), as well as Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)

“The president must be held accountable,” Pelosi said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. “No one is above the law.”