Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting member of Congress, said Monday she would not support the impeachment of President Trump following the Mueller report, calling it a “road to nowhere” that would hurt ultimately hurt Democrats.
“When President Clinton was impeached, the House did indict … but the Senate did not convict, so impeachment did not occur, and Clinton was more popular after that attempted impeachment occurred,” the D.C. Democrat said on CNN’s “At This Hour.”
“I am not prepared for the first time that the Democrats have had control of the House in seven years to go down an impeachment path that would possibly, and I think almost certainly, will lead nowhere — a waste of our time,” she said.
Ms. Norton said that while she doesn’t think impeachment is “off the table,” the Republican-controlled Senate would block the attempt, forcing Democrats to “go to the people in 2020 with a failed impeachment attempt.”
“There’s more to come, it seems to me from our investigations,” she said. “But to assume that impeachment is going to occur when it has almost never occurred in the history of the United States and we have a recent example where impeachment failed with President Clinton is a road to nowhere, and we will go to the people with nothing to show after being in the majority for two years.”
Due to being a delegate and not a full representative, Ms. Norton wouldn’t be able to vote on impeachment, regardless of whether or not the House pursues it.
Democrats have been divided on whether to support impeachment after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report concluded Mr. Trump’s team did not collude with Russia to win the 2016 election but that the president’s attempts to obstruct the investigation could be seen as problematic.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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