Not a Thing: Nancy Pelosi Says Trump ‘Is Becoming Self-Impeachable’

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi derided the Trump administration’s efforts to obstruct Congress, and said that Trump “is becoming self-impeachable,” which is not how impeachment works.

During a Washington Post Live interview with Pelosi, reporter Robert Costa asked Pelosi about the possibility that former White House counsel Don McGahn might refuse to testify before Congress.

“Can you hold him in contempt, Mr McGahn, for refusing congressional demands?” Costa asked.

“Well, we don’t know that he has yet,” Pelosi replied. “Let’s take it one step at a time, let’s see where it goes.”

“And I have said the president is goading us into, wants to goad us into impeachment because he knows, as do I, that that’s not a good thing for the country,” Pelosi continued, and added “But the point is is that every single day, whether it’s obstruction obstruction obstruction obstruction of having people come to the table with facts, or ignoring subpoenas, every single day the president is making a case.”

“He’s becoming self-impeachable, in terms of some of the things that he is doing,” she added.

Pelosi has taken heat from the Democratic base for tamping down on impeachment talk, but in the next breath of this interview, she once again hinted at a longer-term strategy. Costa brought up the 1974 impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, and asked  “Could there be an option for Democrats, that you would consider, of a narrow impeachment proceeding against President Trump about the issues you just raised, obstruction of Congress?”

“Let me just say that right now, we have our committees doing the investigation,” Pelosi said. “But since you mentioned 1974, at that time, Congress took months, months to build a case.”

She said that Congress did investigations, and  with the information they gathered, they came to that conclusion.”

Despite Pelosi’s turn of phrase, Trump is actually not going to impeach himself. The House of Representatives that Speaker Pelosi leads would have to do that.

But Pelosi is keenly aware that impeachment proceedings themselves carry political risk, and is in no hurry to assume that risk until it is absolutely necessary, and until the public has a chance to judge whether the results of these congressional investigations change the political terrain around impeachment.

Watch the clip above, via Washington Post.