GOP congressman open to impeaching Trump: ‘What I’ve heard so far is quite troubling’
Rep. Francis Rooney, a Florida Republican who appears open to impeaching President Donald Trump, said Sunday that what he’s seen so far in the ongoing Trump-Ukraine scandal is “quite troubling.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Rooney on “State of the Union” if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hypothetically called a vote tomorrow to launch an impeachment inquiry, “How do you think you’d go?”
Rooney said he wasn’t “100% sure right this second.”
He added, “I want to hear what Ambassador (Bill) Taylor has to say Tuesday, and I’m hoping to have a chance to hear Ambassador (John) Bolton before any of that would happen, because what I’ve heard so far is quite troubling.”
Rooney, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the center of the inquiry, said Friday that he had not yet come to a conclusion on whether the President committed a crime that compels his removal from office, a striking view among House Republicans defensive of Trump.
The congressman said last week that Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, confirmed Thursday what Trump had denied — that the President engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine.
Mulvaney later sought to walk back his remarks, but Rooney said Sunday that “I don’t see how you walk back something that is clear.”
“I would say game, set, match on that.”
Rooney said he was unsure whether or not the President’s actions rise to the level of an impeachable offense, telling Tapper that “I want to learn a little more about that, I want to get more counsel,” and that he wants to talk to Democratic leadership about “what they have in mind.”
“I think that this is a very egregious situation,” he said.
On Friday, Rooney, a wealthy businessman whose company oversaw a number of famous construction projects including the presidential libraries for both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, announced on Fox News that he plans to retire from Congress.
“I’ve done what I came to do,” he said.
