Rep. Adriano Espaillat said Thursday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is displaying good leadership as more Democrats call for the impeachment of President Trump.
“She’s being fair. She’s being deliberate. She’s listening to all members. There are members that we should go the impeachment route. Some of us do feel we need to go that route and I think her role as a leader is to build consensus as we move forward,” the New York Democrat said to CNN’s “Newsroom” show.
Mr. Espaillat said that while he thought they have “met that threshold” to begin an impeachment inquiry, he isn’t bothered that Ms. Pelosi hasn’t started it yet.
“She’s being a leader and she’s not taking sides among the caucus membership. She will listen to us. I think the needle has moved in the last 48 hours toward the impeachment discussion … there’s a good number of people that speak on impeachment,” the second-term congressman said.
An increased number of Democrats have called for impeachment inquiries to begin into Mr. Trump following special counsel Robert Mueller’s statement to reporters Wednesday.
He said Justice Department policy precludes charging or prosecuting a president for federal crimes, so he didn’t make a determination on whether crimes were committed.
But Mr. Mueller added, “if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
Additionally, Mr. Mueller responded to calls for him to testify in front of Congress, saying, “The report is my testimony” and any additional inquiries “would not go beyond [his office’s] report.”
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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