Some congressional Democrats have admitted that impeaching President Donald Trump for a historic second time serves another purpose other than his immediate removal from office due to posing a “present” threat.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking from the House floor ahead of voting to impeach the president, said Trump “must go” and that he presents “a clear and present danger,” but some of her colleagues say the goal was also to prevent Trump from ever running for president again.
Democrat Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, “One of the other purposes of impeachment, in this case, is to make sure that President Trump is not able to run for federal office again, that he’s not able to seek the presidency.”
Fellow Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland said in an appearance on CNN that the U.S. Constitution “talks about conviction, removal, and disqualification from holding further public office.”
Progressive New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also said the aim was the “complete barring” of Trump from running for office.
“Every minute and every hour that he is in office represents a clear and present danger not just to the United States Congress but frankly to the country,” Ocasio-Cortez told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, adding that “we’re also talking about complete barring of the president, or rather of Donald Trump, from running for office ever again.”
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Meanwhile, some Democrats, while supporting impeachment, have argued Trump should not be immediately removed from office to avoid distractions from the first 100 days of the Biden presidency.
“Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running. And maybe we will send the articles sometime after that,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) told CNN before the impeachment vote.
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