Rep. Jerrold Nadler on Sunday said it would be an impeachable offense if it’s proven that President Trump directed former lawyer Michael Cohen to commit felonies.
“Whether they are important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question, but certainly they’d be impeachable offenses,” Mr. Nadler, who is in line to chair the House Judiciary Committee next year, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Even though they were committed before the president became president, they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office — that would be an impeachable offense,” said Mr. Nadler, New York Democrat.
In court papers filed Friday, federal prosecutors said that Mr. Cohen indicated he made hush money payments to two women who say they had affairs with the president before he was elected at the direction of “Individual-1,” referring to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cohen had already pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations tied to the payments.
He also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his work on a potential Trump real estate project in Moscow.
Though the Justice Department has issued guidelines saying it would be unconstitutional to indict a sitting president, Mr. Nadler said there’s nothing in the Constitution that prohibits the president from being indicted.
“Nobody — not the president, not anybody else — can be above the law,” Mr. Nadler said.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump denied that he directed Mr. Cohen to break any laws.
“On the Mueller situation, we are very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever - there never has been,” the president told reporters. “The last thing I want is help from Russia on a campaign.”
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