The Democratic lawmaker challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the 2018 midterms said Monday that he would vote to impeach President Trump.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) was asked by host Chad Hasty of KFYO-AM in Lubbock whether he has seen enough evidence thus far to support a hypothetical impeachment of the president.
O’Rourke initially responded: “The answer is yes.”
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“I want to be straight with you,” the rising Democratic star continued. “I’ve seen an attempt—no matter how ham-handed—to collude with a foreign government in our national election. I’ve seen an effort to obstruct justice in the investigation of what happened in the 2016 election.”
However, as O’Rourke continued, he said that impeachment is not something that will happen imminently or prior to the conclusion of special counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation.
“We must await all the facts, all the truth, all the information forthcoming from the Bob Mueller investigation,” O’Rourke explained. “So the most important thing to me is to safeguard the independence and the integrity of the Mueller investigation. Because here’s the thing: impeachment doesn't make any sense right now. Until you have reached the point that the facts are so compelling that a Republican colleague—it may be Jodey Arrington, it may be someone else—is able to come before their constituents and explain how they voted to impeach the president of their own party.”
He concluded: “We are not there yet. So I’m going to stay focused on the issues that we can make a difference on right now. And we’ll leave this until we get the conclusion of that investigation.”
These remarks are not entirely new for O'Rourke, as he said last August that he was supportive of the notion of impeachment but wanted Trump to be “successful” and spoke of areas where the two of them could work together.
The Democratic challenger has ignited a firestorm in Texas, raising more than $6.7 million in the first quarter of 2018—all while streaming his incessant treks across the state of Texas as he attempts to meet every possible future constituent.
The O’Rourke campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
