Sen. Amy Klobuchar signaled her support for impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump Friday morning, joining roughly a dozen Democratic presidential candidates and numerous members of Congress who say an impeachment inquiry should be opened.
“I would support an impeachment proceeding beginning now,” Klobuchar said during an appearance on CNN’s “New Day” on Friday. The Minnesota Democrat said Trump’s recent comments about listening if a foreign government approached him with damaging information about a political rival and not necessarily reporting the matter to authorities prompted her to take a clear stance on impeachment.
Trump is “blatantly … asking people to interfere in the election,” Klobuchar said Friday.
She added, “The President of the United States has said it: ‘Come on, bring your dirt. We don’t care how clean these elections are.’ And they don’t even care if it is hacked into.”
More than 60 House Democrats are echoing calls for immediate impeachment proceedings. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler have deflected pressure for an immediate inquiry, instead calling for House investigations to run their course.
Klobuchar repeated this Friday, saying the House should have time to carry out preliminary investigations before opening an inquiry.
“I also understand that they may be wanting to be doing investigations leading up to it and I think they should be given the time to do that,” she said on “New Day.”
The senator was similarly open to impeachment in an interview with NBC Thursday. “What I look at, when I look at this evidence, I see impeachment,” she said on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
Klobuchar is the latest 2020 hopeful calling for impeachment proceedings, a list that includes Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and others.
Last week, a CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll found 2% support for Klobuchar of the likely participants in the first-in-the-nation Iowa Democratic caucuses.