Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe cautioned Democrats who are looking to impeach President Trump if the party takes back the House of Representatives, telling CNN on…
Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe cautioned Democrats who are looking to impeach President Trump if the party takes back the House of Representatives, telling CNN on Tuesday, „If you’re going to shoot him, you have to shoot to kill“ with „overwhelming“ bipartisan support on an impeachment vote.
Tribe, a staunch critic of the president going back to his candidacy, appeared on CNN’s „New Day“ to discuss his new book, „To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.“
„If it was proven that the president used the powers of the United States government to cover-up his own criminality or to cover-up the way in which he cooperated with Moscow in order to win the presidency, that may or may not qualify as an ordinary federal crime, but it’s certainly an impeachable offense,“ Tribe told co-anchor Chris Cuomo.
“But it will be available only if we don’t use it loosely, and ring the bell every time something looks amiss,” Tribe continued. “You can’t be the boy who cried wolf and have a viable impeachment power. You can’t use it over and over again against the same president.”
“If you’re going to shoot him, you have to shoot to kill,” he surmised. „And that requires an overwhelming majority of a bipartisan kind. Otherwise you’re just going to nick the guy, and make him feel empowered and vindicated.”
An April poll by NPR, PBS and Marist showed that 47 percent of registered voters said they would „definitely“ vote against a congressional candidate who ran on impeaching Trump, while 42 percent said they would definitely vote for the candidate who promised to do so. About 10 percent of voters were unsure.
Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told „New Day“ on Thursday that Democrats should not rush into discussions around impeachment.
„That’s not something that we should be rushing into or rushing to suggest,” Schiff said.
