A Hillary Clinton victory on Election Day could lead to another Clinton impeachment, two Republican lawmakers speculate.
“This investigation will continue whether she wins or not,” Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
“But assuming she wins and the investigation goes forward and it looks like an indictment is pending, at that point in time under the Constitution, the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial — it would go to the Senate and impeachment proceedings and removal would take place,” he added.
Last week, FBI Director James Comey informed Congress his agency would be renewing its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server — reviewing newly recovered emails discovered in the course of a separate investigation into Anthony Weiner’s latest sexting scandal. Weiner is the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
“If we see an email that says, ‘I know that’s classified but send it anyway,’ that would be the kind of smoking gun the FBI is looking for,” McCaul said. “That, then, I think, would be the grounds for an indictment.”
The FBI’s decision to reopen its investigation into Clinton’s emails has ignited a firestorm days before the presidential election and McCaul is not the only lawmaker who has raised the specter of impeachment.
Monday, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told the Beloit Daily News in an interview that Clinton’s actions could lead to her impeachment, if she wins the presidential election.
“She purposefully circumvented it [the law], this was willful concealment and destruction,” the paper quoted Johnson. The incumbent senator is in a tight re-election battle against Democratic opponent Russ Feingold.
According to the Beloit Daily News, Johnson cited two statutes that Clinton possibility violated, including 18 USCS § 2071 — which deals with the destruction or removal of official government records — and 18 USCS § 793 — which deals with the mishandling of information related to national defense.
“I’m not a lawyer, but this is clearly written,” Johnson told the paper. “I would say yes, high crime or misdemeanor, I believe she is in violation of both laws.”