House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrat leaders are trying to flip the impeachment narrative up a little and have asked other Democrats to back off presidential impeachment conversation on Monday, according to sources inside the the US Congress.
Apparently Pelosi held a caucus conference call with six other members of House leadership where they warned against over-plying their hand in the midst of significant impeachment chatter.
This comes after the release of a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on President Trump and Russia.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks with reporters to a Democratic Caucus meeting the morning after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The conference call happened only a few hours after Pelosi sent colleagues a letter urging them to “proceed down a path of finding the truth” rather than jumping straight to presidential impeachment votes.
Democrat leadership in the Monday evening phone call used words like “thoughtful,” “methodical” and “careful” to describe the next steps they should take in investigating Trump. They apparently did not come to a consensus on impeachment.
Pelosi cautioned members, “Duty and democracy. That’s what this is about,” according to a source on the call.
“I’m all for impeaching Barr,” she quipped, referring to Attorney General William Barr, whose report on Mueller’s investigation sought to exonerate the president.
Democrats are demanding an unredacted version of the Mueller report and agreed they want to bring Barr and Mueller before Congress.
At this point, Barr has only agreed to show the full report to top members of Congress in a limited setting.
Pelosi shared with the caucus a letter signed by six top Democrats asking Barr for a wider release.
“Well I think that there’s clearly differences of views on the ultimate question of impeachment right now, but there’s a consensus on one thing, which is: we have to get a full, unredacted version of the Mueller report and secondly, we have to have Bob Mueller as well as key witnesses, which are featured in the report, come testify on Capitol Hill,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) said on CNN.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said Democrats “should be cautious” when pushing impeachment. But Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, pointed out “everyone knows I’m for impeachment,” while explaining next steps in her committee’s probes into Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank.
Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) thought the Mueller report provided enough to impeach Trump, a source said.
“It’s just ridiculous,” she said on the call. “I think we have enough.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), meanwhile, said an impeachment should be done in a “deliberate and thoughtful” way.
Pelosi reminded Democrats that they don’t have to pursue impeachment to investigate Trump.
“While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directory to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth,” Pelosi wrote on Monday.
Credit: NY Post
