House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Monday it would be a mistake for Democrats to launch investigations once they officially retake the majority in the House, arguing that the country has “other problems.”
“It looks like what they’re going to focus on is more investigations,” McCarthy said on Fox News. “I think America is too great a nation to have such a small agenda.
“I think there’s other problems out there that we really should be focused upon,” he continued. “And my belief is, let’s see where we can work together. Let’s move America forward.”
{mosads}McCarthy, who caused controversy in 2015 by linking the House investigation into Benghazi to then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s falling poll numbers, asserted that Congress has investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election “for a long period of time,” and that “both sides have come up with nothing in the process.”
Republicans leading the House Intelligence Committee issued a report earlier this year that found “no evidence” of ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russia. Democrats on the committee refuted that assertion and have vowed to reopen the investigation upon taking the majority.
Multiple other congressional committees have held hearings related to the Russia investigation in the past two years, with takeaways largely falling along party lines.
Democrats have alleged there’s evidence of improper behavior by Trump associates, while Republicans have largely focused on alleged bias among Department of Justice officials conducting the probe into Russian interference.
In addition to Russia-related investigations, Democrats have pledged to launch inquiries into Trump’s finances, Ivanka Trump’s use of private email and certain administration policies once they’re in the majority.
Democrats over the weekend ramped up speculation about Trump’s potential legal problems after federal prosecutors said in a court filing that the president’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, violated campaign finance laws at Trump’s direction.
McCarthy was asked to respond to Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) comments on Sunday that he believes Trump could be indicted once he leaves office.
“When the president hires an attorney to solve a problem, he expects him to do it in a legal manner,” McCarthy said. “And if Schiff is taking this beyond — to go forward and say there’s an impeachable offense because of a campaign finance problem, there’s a lot of members in Congress who would have to leave for that.”
Schiff, the likely incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not say the alleged crimes were an impeachable offense.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), expected to be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that Trump’s involvement in the violations, if true, would be an impeachable offense, but he said lawmakers would have to weigh whether they would warrant impeachment proceedings.