Dems weigh what to do about Trump once he’s out of office

WASHINGTON — With a familiar chant, President Donald Trump’s backers regularly called for Hillary Clinton to be thrown in prison during the 2016 campaign. Now top Democrats are grappling with fraught questions about whether to lock Trump up.

As Democrats in Congress press for continued investigation of Trump while he remains in office, the party’s presidential candidates are weighing how to address his alleged misdeeds when he’s no longer in the White House. It’s a question that raises the potential of Democrats politicizing law enforcement, something they’ve blasted Trump for doing.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said in an interview released Wednesday that if she wins the White House, her Justice Department “would have no choice” but to pursue an obstruction of justice case against Trump after he leaves office.

Harris’ comments come after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told fellow Democrats that she would rather see Trump defeated in the election, then imprisoned, than impeached in Congress. That’s partly a way to quiet the push from multiple Democrats vying to replace Trump, who want their party to start the impeachment process.

Vowing to seek charges against Trump after he leaves office brings risk for Democratic White House hopefuls, given their own party’s repeated excoriations of the president for politicizing the Justice Department.

Even the idea of impeachment, though popular with Democrats’ base voters, is shy of majority support with the general public, polls indicate.