While most Democrats have been reluctant to suggest that Donald Trump should be impeached, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said that Thursday’s testimony by James Comey shows that it should now be on the table.
Murphy said that, based on Comey’s statements, Trump was trying to obstruct an FBI investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
Video:
Sen. Chris Murphy says today’s Comey testimony should put impeachment on the table: pic.twitter.com/SubR9uVxWI
— Sean Colarossi (@SeanColarossi) June 9, 2017
Murphy dropped this bomb:
I think there is going to be some real soul-searching about the conditions for impeachment. This alone may not bring that conversation to a head, but I think we have enough now to know that the president was absolutely trying to stop the FBI from getting to the truth on the Russia story. … The obstruction case seems to be as clear cut as you can imagine given Comey’s testimony today.
While Murphy didn’t quite explicitly call for the impeachment of the president, his comments suggest that Democrats are becoming more comfortable heading down that road as the evidence continues to mount against the White House.
The Democrat’s comments come after Comey testified on Thursday that Trump had essentially directed him to drop an active FBI investigation, which means he, as Murphy said, was obstructing justice.
Republicans continue to hang their hat on the fact that Trump didn’t explicitly come out and say, “I’m trying to obstruct justice,” but it’s clear to most rational adults what the president meant when he told the former FBI director that he wanted to see the Russia “cloud” lifted.
As it becomes clearer that Trump was trying to quash an investigation, it is likely that more Democrats – and perhaps some Republicans – will feel comfortable talking about impeachment.