Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg (D) said in a town hall on Monday that he supports impeaching President Trump, but he would “think twice” before trying to give advice on the subject to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has resisted impeachment efforts.
“I would also say even though I have revealed myself to be ambitious in that I am a young man running for president, that I would also think twice before offering strategic advice to Nancy Pelosi,” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., told an audience at an MSNBC town hall in Fresno, Calif.
{mosads}Buttigieg’s comments come as Pelosi faces growing calls for impeachment from within her caucus after special counsel Robert Mueller said last week that charging Trump with a crime was “not an option” for the Department of Justice (DOJ), effectively punting the issue to House Democrats.
Some Democrats, including Pelosi, have voiced concern that impeaching Trump could play into the his favor by rallying his base. Impeachment critics also point out that the push stands no chance in the GOP-controlled Senate.
“I think part of what’s happening here is I think to a lot of people, impeachment means removal from office but it’s really a process and it’s the only process we’ve got left because the DOJ has said you can’t charge a sitting president, and I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to suggest that the president is above the law,” Buttigieg said.
“Basically it means the only place we can have a proceeder, the only place we can have a due process, the only way we can through the evidence and so forth as long as he is in the Oval Office is in Congress in the form of impeachment proceeding which is what I think we’re going to have to do,” he continued. “But in order to do that, it better be an air tight process. So I do recognize that while we’re still trying to get information, the investigations are ongoing, there are witnesses that have yet to come before Congress, that there may be some strategic wisdom in following that sequence. I’ll leave that to Congress.”