Dem Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Trump ‘Should Be Indicted’ If He Committed Crimes

Prominent Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is speaking boldly about the prospect of indicting Donald Trump, saying that Trump “should be indicted” if he committed crimes, and that “we are certainly in a mode of moving toward indictment and charges” against Trump.

Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared on CNN’s Cuomo Primetime Tuesday night to discuss the confirmation hearing of Trump attorney general nominee William Barr.

Sen. Whitehouse praised Barr for several statements he made that contradicted Trump’s positions, but expressed concern about Barr’s signal that he would adhere to a Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memo that says a sitting president can’t be indicted.

“It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the proposition that you can’t indict a sitting president never gets tested,” Whitehouse told host Chris Cuomo. “So we have to look at ways to try to get that question before a court so that it can be determined where questions of law get determined, and that’s in the court and not the Department of Justice.”

“Does this betray a sense that you think that this president should be indicted?” Cuomo asked.

“I think that if there with crimes that he has committed, that he should be indicted,” Whitehouse said. “I don’t subscribe to the theory that a president can’t be indicted.”

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has already implicated Trump in at least two federal crimes.

“Based on what you know right now, do you think you could make a case against this president?” Cuomo asked.

“I’d like to know a lot more,” Whitehouse said, but went on to add that “I’m at the stage, based on what I do know, that I would be sitting down with the agents and say we need to run down this, we need to run down that. We need to pin down things before we go.”

“We are certainly in a mode of moving toward indictment and charges,” Whitehouse said, “but I do not believe that we’re at the stage of actually being able to make the charge.”

Watch the clip above, via CNN.