‘Trump impeachment matters for the world’
The Indian-origin Democratic lawmaker says the impeachment inquiry against the US president is not an internal matter of the US because the outcome will affect the world.
Did you ever expect to participate in an impeachment inquiry against a president?
No, I don’t think I even said the word impeachment when I ran for Congress the first time, and so this is kind of the last thing in the world that I would’ve wanted to be a part of, you know, after entering Congress.
How have the last two weeks been as you participated in these closed door and public hearings?
There’s a tremendous amount of background reading, but also basically attending depositions. And of course getting ready for the questioning of witnesses at the live hearings and …preparing for questioning these witnesses often felt like cramming for final exams the night before you have to get ready. So it was quite an intense experience. It was seven hearings in five days, which is a very intense pace around here.
What do you think is really at stake here?
Three issues. One is, are we going to routinely invite other countries to try to influence our elections? Is that just going to become the norm? The second issue is, are we going to allow a president to use the tremendous powers of the presidency to basically investigate private citizens for…purely personal partisan motives, at the expense of our national security, by the way. The third is, are we going to allow the president and his administration to effectively shut down investigations and the oversight powers of Congress on behalf of the people by simply stonewalling and obstructing investigations? I think these are very, very important questions.
Why should the world care about what is essentially an internal political matter of the US, and why should Indians care?
From everyday citizens to dissidents to freedom fighters, the world looks to the United States as a beacon of freedom, liberty, but also of law and order. Governments around the world look to the US as an example of how to conduct themselves. And if the US is not a place where no one is above the law, other countries will take note. If the US is not a place where you have different branches of government that form as a check and balance on each other so no one part of the government becomes overly powerful, other governments and countries will take note. If the US is not a place where an individual citizen can be protected from the overwhelming power of the chief executive, who can prosecute or use his or her powers against that individual for improper purposes, what’s to stop other people and other governments from doing the same? That’s why I think people around the world are interested.