Tim Ryan Releases Statement in Support of Impeachment Proceedings

 

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) said the House “must begin impeachment proceedings” in a statement released Tuesday morning.

Republicans criticized Ryan, a 2020 hopeful, for using the impeachment issue to “breakthrough in a crowded primary field” and “satiate his radical base.”

But Ryan claims he came to the decision “after much thought and consideration and after both reading the Mueller report and hearing directly from the Special Counsel.”

“In America, no one is above the law. In America, we have an elected president, not a king. In America, the people govern,” Ryan began his statement.

“We must fully expose the lawlessness which has already occurred and prevent additional lawlessness from occurring. While it is unlikely that we will see a conviction in the Senate with its present Republican leadership more concerned with power and party than their constitutional duties and the rule of law, we can no longer sit by while a lawless president remains unchecked,” he continued.

Ryan went on to suggest that avoiding impeachment would enable “this kind of lawless behavior to continue and to metastasize.”

“Our republic cannot survive if we acquiesce to the view held by Republicans in the Senate. Power without principle is corrupt,” he concluded. “An impeachment inquiry will begin to cut the cancer of corruption out of government and prevent it from spreading.”

As The Ohio Star reported, Ryan first expressed support for impeachment last week after Special Counsel Robert Mueller spoke at a press conference.

“I’m a lot closer today than I was yesterday. I think what Mueller said basically that he would have indicted the president, but for the fact that the law would not allow it,” Ryan said in an interview with NPR.

Mandi Merritt, regional communications director for the Republican National Committee, told The Ohio Star that Ryan is just “trying to garner attention for a news cycle or two.

“Tim Ryan is grasping at straws in hopes of breaking through the 2020 field,” she added. “Instead of getting to work for the American people, Tim Ryan continues to gaslight for impeachment, putting his own political ambitions over what is best for Ohioans and the country.”

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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Tim Ryan” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.

 

 

 

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