Donald Trump “richly deserves” to be impeached, House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler said on Sunday, but despite growing support, House Democrats are still holding back. Trump “has done many impeachable offenses” and “violated the law six ways from Sunday,” Nadler said on CNN, but “That’s not the question. The question is, can we develop enough evidence to put before the American people?”
Nadler’s committee is moving forward with investigations that increasingly look like impeachment inquiries—on Friday, Nadler said that the investigations “in effect” are impeachment inquiries—but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains opposed to the idea.
The impeachment debate isn’t only happening among leadership in the House, though, and support is growing among rank-and-file Democrats. Sunday, after Nadler’s CNN appearance, four more—Reps. Derek Kilmer, Kim Schrier, Suzan DelBene, and Denny Heck, all of Washington state—joined the call for impeachment. They joined Reps. Katherine Clark, Mike Levin, Chris Pappas, Peter DeFazio, Ann Kuster, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Andre Carson, John Garamendi, and Lori Trahan in having called for impeachment since former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Wednesday testimony. Clark is the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, so with Nadler’s comments, her support for impeachment signals that Pelosi is increasingly surrounded with people pressing for a more assertive approach.