Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has changed her position on impeachment, falling in step with most of her 2020 hopeful peers and saying Friday that it would set a “dangerous precedent” to let President Donald Trump go unpunished.
“Up to this point, I have been opposed to pursuing impeachment because it will further divide our already badly divided country,” she said in a statement. “However, after looking carefully at the transcript of the conversation with Ukraine’s President, the whistleblower complaint, the Inspector General memo, and President Trump’s comments about the issue, unfortunately, I believe that if we do not proceed with the inquiry, it will set a very dangerous precedent.”
“If we allow the President to abuse his or her power, then our society will rot from top to bottom,” she continued. “We will turn into a banana republic, where people in positions of power—from the president all the way down to the traffic cop—will feel it’s okay to abuse their power with no consequences.”
Gabbard had been a rare Democratic holdout, saying on Fox and Friends earlier this week that an impeachment inquiry would be too “divisive.”
Gabbard has struggled to gain much traction in the presidential polls, and failed to qualify for the October debate.
