Judiciary Democrat: ‘I don’t have any difficulty’ with Pelosi ‘prison’ comment

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said Sunday he didn’t have “any difficulty” with a report that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she wanted to see President Trump in prison rather than impeached.

“I don’t have any difficulty with those words,” Cicilline, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“It’s kind of rich to have the president complain about this when he began a campaign with ‘lock her up’ as his bumper sticker and led an effort to delegitimize the first African American president,” he added.

{mosads}Cicilline demurred on whether he agreed with the substance of Pelosi’s alleged remarks, but added, “we’re not going to let the president engaged in a coverup” and cited a passage in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that Trump had instructed then-White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and then instructed him to lie about the order.

“These are criminal acts, obstruction of justice, and clearly impeachable offenses,” Cicilline said.

He also waved off an interparty debate among House Democrats on whether to impeach Trump or continue several committees’ investigations of Trump’s administration and businesses, calling it “really a process question.”

“There’s … complete agreement among the House Democratic Caucus that the president must be held accountable, that no one is above the law,” he said.

Democratic leaders have attempted to maintain a united front amid Pelosi’s repeated opposition to impeaching Trump, with Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Trump may be eventually impeached but “right now, there doesn’t appear to be the support for it.”

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (S.C.), the number three Democrat in the House, said last Sunday he believed Trump’s impeachment was inevitable before walking the comments back the next day.