Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who is challenging President Trump on the Republican ticket in 2020, believes the recent actions of the White House and Trump campaign resemble those of former President Richard Nixon’s administration in the days before his impeachment.
“He’s [Trump] says [sic] we’re just not going to comply with any of these subpoenas because they’re partisans,” Weld told Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” on Saturday. “And that to me is the president really not living up to his responsibility as a co-equal branch of government. In fact, it’s the House and the Senate that are in Article One of the Constitution, so they’ve got the primary power under the Constitution.”
“I think the president is ignoring that as he and his campaign have made pretty clear in the last few days that their position is there is no primary, there is no election; we don’t have to do anything and that harks back to President Nixon who was indicted and had to quit because of failure to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That’s a core responsibility of the president and I don’t see this administration living up to that one, not by a long shot,” said Weld.
Weld, who was the running mate to 2016 Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson, said he thinks Republicans are “almost daring” Democrats to move on impeachment proceedings ahead of the next election because they do not intend to honor the legislative branch’s requests.
Although special counsel Robert Mueller’s report did not find Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to win the election, Democrats have argued it showed Trump obstructed the investigation.
Weld was one of 750 federal prosecutors who came forward earlier this month to say Mueller printed enough evidence in his report to indict Trump on obstruction charges.
“Volume two in the report sets out several instances of obstruction of justice by the president and it’s not even a close call — telling people to lie, that’s not even a close call as obstruction of justice. So I really don’t agree with Attorney General Bill Barr, who’s a hell of a lawyer and I don’t really understand why he’s gone down this line, but he says you can’t indict a president for obstruction, and that’s just not the law,” said Weld.
“I worked on the [President Richard] Nixon impeachment back in 1974 and he refused to comply with subpoenas and that was Article Three of impeachment against him,” he said.
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