Rachel Maddow only had one question following the explosive news that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn told investigators that people connected to the White House and Congress reached out to him as a way to obstruct the Russia investigation.
“How is the president not being impeached for obstruction of justice right now?” an exasperated MSNBC host asked on Thursday.
Maddow said the interactions that Flynn had with people in Trump’s orbit to interfere with the Russia probe were “like the stuff that gets cut out of a B-movie because it’s a little too ham-handed in terms of explaining to the audience how this particular crime family does its business.”
Video:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Rachel Maddow has one question following the news that people connected to the White House and Congress were actively interfering in the Russia probe. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/nPUIzvQdcU
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) May 17, 2019
Rachel Maddow said:
Just a little personal aside here: How is the president not being impeached for obstruction of justice right now? I mean, that episode alone — I realize there’s a lot of equities involved in terms of whether or not the president is going to be impeached for stuff like this, but this is the president’s personal counsel calling up Flynn and being like, ‘You know, it might be a national security issue if you said anything about the president. You know how much the president likes you, wouldn’t want me to tell him you turned hostile on him, would you? I’m going to go ahead and tell him. I’m going to tell him you’ve become hostile to him if you go ahead and cooperate, you sure you want to cooperate?’ This is like the stuff that gets cut out of a B-movie because it’s a little too ham-handed in terms of explaining to the audience how this particular crime family does its business. You sure you want to cooperate? Oh, you’re going to go ahead and cooperate? Well, I’m going to tell my client about your hostility to him. This was made public today.
There is enough obstruction of justice evidence to move forward on impeachment
It’s no secret that Democrats in Congress have been reluctant to dive into impeachment proceedings. Public opinion on the issue has been mixed, though support for impeachment has grown in recent weeks.
But, as Rachel Maddow suggested on Thursday, there is clearly enough evidence now, and there probably has been for quite some time, particularly on the obstruction of justice issue.
With public support growing and the evidence mounting, Democrats should consider formally launching impeachment proceedings – if not to remove Trump from office then at least to obtain documents and testimony they aren’t otherwise able to get via the standard oversight tools.
Enough is enough.
Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
