Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) cautioned against a “race to judgment” on impeaching President Trump, as a wave of his fellow 2020 presidential candidates have issued calls to begin impeachment proceedings.
“I think he committed impeachable offenses, but we have to go through the process,” Bennet said of Trump during a CNN presidential town hall Thursday night.
“One of the problems with our politics today is we want to go out and tweet and immediately react, a race to judgment, and we need to be more strategic than that,” he added. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t follow this evidence where it leads, but I am saying we should bring the American people.”{mosads}
Democratic presidential hopefuls have ramped up their calls for the House to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump after special counsel Robert Mueller spoke publicly for the first time about his investigation.
Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) joined fellow Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) in calling for impeachment proceedings, with both Warren and Harris saying that Mueller had delivered an “impeachment referral.”
Mueller said during a Wednesday press conference that his team did not exonerate the president, but also pointed to his report, which did not make a determination on whether Trump committed a crime by interfering with the probe.
“After that investigation, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that,” Mueller said.
He also noted that he did not believe he had the authority to decide whether Trump committed a crime, citing Justice Department regulations. He has previously said that Congress could pursue obstruction of justice investigations.
Before Wednesday’s statement, a number of 2020 presidential candidates had already called for impeachment proceedings, with Warren last month becoming the first White House contender to call for impeachment.