Former U.S. Attorney Andy McCarthy says Prsident Trump’s statements leading up to the Capitol riot could be considered “impeachable conduct,” but he is cautioning Congress against speeding through impeachment proceedings.
“I think there’s impeachable conduct here, but there’s no reason to do this in a fast and nasty one-day proceeding if you can’t immediately remove the president because there won’t be a [Senate] trial,” McCarthy told Trace Gallagher on “America’s Newsroom” Wednesday morning.
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McCarthy argued his position in a National Review op-ed published Tuesday titled “Don’t Play Pelosi’s Game of Politicized Impeachment.” McCarthy called Trump’s first impeachment a “nakedly political exercise” that was expedited through the House for maximum political advantage.
“[Democrats] rushed to get impeachment done before the holidays and the kick-off of their 2020 election campaign,” McCarthy writes in the op-ed. “Then, once the House approved impeachment along partisan lines, [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi suddenly decided that there was no rush after all. She delayed naming impeachment managers and transmitting the articles to the Senate, calculating that she’d do it at a more propitious time.”
McCarthy warned against having a second impeachment with similar motives, especially since the president only has a week remaining in his term.
“There’s no excuse not to have formal and proper due process, unless there’s such an emergent need to get this guy out of the White House that we have to do it forthwith and the Senate is going to drop everything and have an impeachment trial,” McCarthy said. “That’s not going to happen. So what’s the rush?”
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McCarthy said due process could be circumvented if there was an immediate need to remove the president, but that an immediate need has not been expressed in this case.
“There is not a prospect of immediately removing him,” he said. “So I wouldn’t let it be politicized so that [the House] can stick the impeachment in their back pocket and then have a trial at some politically expedient time.”
