San Fernando Valley Rep. Brad Sherman received an overwhelming endorsement from constituents this weekend for his decision to introduce articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
Several hundred attendees of a town hall cheered Sherman’s recitation of the reasons he thinks Trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment, the Los Angeles Times reported.
But he also sought to hold down expectations for Trump’s immediate removal, either by impeachment or the means provided in the 25th Amendment, which allows members of an administration to remove a president in the national interest. That, he said, according to The Times, would require Trump’s entire Cabinet to join in the dismissal, and Trump could fire any cabinet member he thought was turning against him.
“Impeachment is more likely than the 25th Amendment, and it could take a few more shocking things to happen,” Sherman said. “We’re not there yet.”
The Porter Ranch Democrat said he had declined to call for impeachment at his previous town hall in April because he had only news reports and secondhand information on what appeared to have been obstruction of justice by Trump in seeking to end the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion by his campaign in Russian efforts to sway the presidential election.
After reviewing the sworn testimony of former FBI Director James B. Comey, both oral and written, Sherman said he became convinced that Trump threatened Comey to get him to drop the investigation, then fired Comey when he didn’t, The Times reported.
Sherman joined with Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, in introducing the articles of impeachment in June.
Sherman Sunday spoke only briefly about last week’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, calling the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis as dangerous as Islamic terrorists. Still, he wouldn’t say Trump’s failure to call them terrorists is a cause for impeachment.
“I don’t think you can impeach a president for being wrong,” he said, according to The Times.
—City News Service