Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) is raising questions after former special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony this week about his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Lieu says Mueller appeared to give conflicting answers Wednesday about the ability to indict a sitting president, indicating in the first hearing that it could not be done, then rolling that back in the second hearing of the day.
"I found that very odd," Lieu told Cheddar on Friday. "He understood that what he said to me — that he refused to backtrack to the Republican member who followed me — was that Donald Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice."
Lieu says he thinks Mueller walked back his comments because he didn't want to appear to say he believed the president was guilty of a crime.
Lieu's comments come amid growing pressure from some Democrats to begin an impeachment inquiry, a move that Speaker Nancy Pelosi still says is premature. But Lieu said that support is growing, pointing to five more members of his party who have come to support impeachment proceedings since Mueller's testimony.
"You can't watch these hearings and not conclude three things: that the Russians systematically attacked us in 2016 in our elections in a sweeping manner. Second, that the Trump campaign embraced this attack, used information from it, gave Russians internal polling, and knew it was going to help Donald Trump. And then third, the president committed multiple acts of obstruction of justice, which are felonies, to try to stop the investigation into the Russians."
But other representatives have said the only way Democrats will remove Trump is at the ballot box.
"We do need to be realistic, and that is, the only way he's leaving office, at least at this point, is by being voted out," said Rep. Adam Schiff on Thursday.
Lieu isn't deterred. "When the Nixon impeachment process started, 19 percent of the American people supported it. After a few months of hearings the American people decided Nixon was a crook, and then he eventually resigned," said the representative.
He also called Attorney General William Barr's announcement that he will revitalize federal capital punishment an effort by the Trump administration to "distract" from a bad week for the president.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a recall election in about two weeks. Newsom was elected governor in 2018 with nearly 62% of the vote after working as lieutenant governor for eight years. However, his popularity took a hit after his handling of Covid-19 pandemic, although the White House is refusing to cite this as the direct reason for the September 14th recall election. There are 46 candidates running to be Newsom's replacement, and some are saying that California could end up electing a republican governor.
Jeremy White, California politics reporter and co-writer of daily California Playbook Newsletter at Politico, joined Cheddar Politics to discuss more about the election and its possible outcomes.
President Joe Biden says the United States will complete it's evacuation of Americans and others from Kabul, despite the attack that killed 12 U.S. service members and many Afghan civilians.
Crypto-enthusiasts are taking to social media to urge regular Afghans to adopt bitcoin in the face of considerable economic uncertainty.
The U.S. economy grew at a 6.6% annual rate last quarter, slightly faster than previously estimated, the government said Thursday in a report that pointed to a sustained consumer-led rebound from the pandemic recession.
The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant says it plans to build an undersea tunnel so that massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water can be released into the ocean about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) away from the plant to avoid interference with local fishing.
Two suicide bombers and gunmen have targeted crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport, in the waning days of a massive airlift that has drawn thousands of people seeking to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose for the first time in five weeks even though the economy and job market have been recovering briskly from the coronavirus pandemic.
Secretary of State Blinken said Wednesday that as many as 1,500 Americans may be awaiting evacuation from Afghanistan.
Kathy Hochul became the first female governor of New York on Tuesday, vowing to bring new energy and urgency to solving immense challenges as she took over an administration criticized for inaction.
U.S military troops flying round the clock have managed their biggest day of airlifts out of Afghanistan by far.
