Rep. Jamie Raskin Argues Impeachment is ‘Open-and-Shut’ But Democrats ‘Must be Open to Exculpatory Evidence’
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told CNN that he believes the impeachment of President Donald Trump is “open-and-shut,” but argued the Senate should be open to “exculpatory evidence” if Trump brings it forward.
Raskin was appearing on Anderson Cooper’s program Monday night, where he was asked to respond to The New York Times’ extensive report on the freeze on Ukraine aid.
It “suggests everyone was in the loop. Everyone understood it. The Times report says they tried to cover their tracks and tried to displace their own responsibility onto the Department of Defense and other actors,” Raskin said.
Cooper then asked if this would give Nancy Pelosi more reason to delay sending over articles of impeachment for further investigation.
Raskin said he didn’t think so.
“We could have had 18, 19, 20 witnesses if we were willing to drag this on for months, but all of them have told us the exact same thing. In any event what’s put into the bill of indictment, which is what an impeachment is, it doesn’t have to be exhaustive. That’s what the trial is for,” Raskin said. “The Senate ought to call everybody who they think they need to fill in any material element missing from the case. What we don’t have right now is any kind of alibi or any kind of alternative hypothesis about what happened. Everybody agrees this is not an Agatha Christie mystery. We know exactly what the president did.”
“I think all of the senators have to have a fair and open mind–including the Democrats who must be open to any exculpatory evidence, any evidence that contradicts the overwhelming weight of evidence coming out of the House,” he continued. “But unless that evidence comes forward, I would say that this is one of the most open-and-shut cases I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Watch above, via CNN.
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