Waters Slams Fellow Dems, Moves to Make Impeachment a 'Central Issue'
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty last week on eight felony counts of bank and tax fraud — which had nothing to do with President Donald Trump.
On the same day, former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in a deal involving several counts of bank and tax fraud related to a taxi medallion scheme, as well as two counts of alleged campaign finance violations.
Those campaign finance violations — which are in dispute as even being crimes — stem from “hush money” payments arranged or made by Cohen to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to prevent them from speaking about alleged sexual encounters with Trump a dozen years ago. Since the deal appeared to imply that Trump was an “unindicted co-conspirator” in Cohen’s case, shouts of “impeachment” arose in the liberal media.
Yet, according to Bloomberg, Democrat leaders have studiously avoided mentioning the “I-word” in recent interviews, perhaps knowing there is not enough support for such a move among the general public or out of fear that talk of impeachment will rally the Republican voter base ahead of the midterm elections.
Instead, they are suggesting Democrats wait for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian collusion and interference in the 2016 election to reach a conclusion, and vowed to launch all sorts of congressional investigations of their own if they regain control of the House in November.
But The Washington Free Beacon reported that at least one prominent elected Democrat — California Rep. Maxine “Impeach 45” Waters — has strayed from the “no impeachment talk yet” party narrative and slammed her own party for not making the impeachment of Trump a “central issue” in this year’s elections.
In an appearance Sunday on MSNBC, Waters reiterated the narrative that Trump had been implicated in Cohen’s plea deal as an “unindicted co-conspirator” and stood by an official statement she’d released earlier stating that last week’s legal developments would ultimately lead to “real articles of impeachment” against the president.
Asked about her strong stance on the impeachment of Trump — she has been calling for it ever since he took office — and her party leaders shying away from such talk, Waters held nothing back in criticizing her fellow Democrats for their caution on the issue.
“You know, I’ve been talking about impeachment for a long time, and my party has not made this their central issue,” Waters said. “They’ve insisted they need to talk about the issues they believe are central to the concern of the American people,” such as Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, among other things.
“I’ve been saying we can walk and chew gum at the same time. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t talk about those issues, but allow the American people to understand that we know something is going on, and that we have seen this president act in ways that, the precedent is such that we’ve never seen anybody act in the way this president has acted…
“So I think we can do both,” said Waters, referring to talk about impeachment as well as other issues. “I know that there are those who are concerned that somehow, if you talk about impeachment, you’re just going to fire up the hardcore constituency of this president. Well, they’re fired up already…
“I believe, of course, that this president can be impeached, will be impeached and certainly has committed the kind of crimes, high crimes and misdemeanors, that is identified by the Constitution as such that would qualify him for impeachment,” Waters concluded.
The trouble for Waters is, while she and a significant portion of the Democrat base are adamant that President Trump must be impeached from office, neither she nor anybody else has provided a specific crime of which Trump is guilty and for which the proper remedy is impeachment, offering up only allegations of wrongdoing and vague assertions that “something is going on.”
Waters was correct about one thing, though, that being that Trump’s base of support is “fired up already,” but she is wrong to suggest that widespread talk of impeachment by Democrats ahead of the election — we all know it is inevitable if they regain control of Congress — won’t fire them up even further.
That’s precisely why Democrat leaders have been so hesitant to make it a “central issue,” much to Waters’ obvious dismay.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
