December 12, 2019

Watch Veronica Escobar Make the Case for Impeaching Trump

With a simple analogy, the representative from Texas takes down Republicans’ argument that Trump committed no wrongdoing.

Tom Williams/Zuma

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While the House Judiciary Committee debated the articles of impeachment drawn up against President Donald Trump, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) used a simple analogy to make the case that the president had committed a crime.

“If a community suffers a natural disaster, and the governor of the state has aid that will help that community, but calls the mayor of your community and says, ‘I want you to do me a favor, though,’ and conditions giving the aid to the community on the police chief smearing his political opponent, has there been a crime?” Escobar said this morning. “The answer is yes. And that governor would go to jail.”

The governor would go to jail, Escobar said, even if he released the aid after he got caught. Escobar also pointed out that this hypothetical governor also would have committed a crime if he defied subpoenas and tried to cover up his wrongdoing.

“Our Republican colleagues are working overtime to try to convince us that we didn’t see what we saw with our own eyes and we didn’t hear what we heard with our own ears,” she said. “Facts matter.”

Watch Escobar’s full statement below:

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That’s twice the impact for intrepid reporting that peels back the layers to publish the truth—and the context you need to break it all down. It’s twice the fuel for investigations on voting rights and justice, critical in this midterm election year. And it’s twice the power for exposing the chaos and corruption of a White House trying to control the narrative.

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