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Impeaching the president is a popular topic among Democrats these days. But Republicans control both houses of Congress, so it seems like a futile endeavor without significant Republican support.

Have any Congressional Republicans so far said they support impeachment, or said what it would take for them to support impeachment, or what they consider impeachable offenses for this president? Additionally, is there any significant support by Republican voters for impeachment, or is this a purely partisan issue by Democrats right now?

ETA: I am asking about this president generally but I am most interested in Republican positions considering the firing of the James Comey, the president's admission that it was because of the investigation against himself (or his campaign, whatever), and the president's subsequent threat against Comey. And if any of that has had an effect on Republican support for impeachment.

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  • Downvoted because Trump is no longer President, therefore the question is moot.
    – jamesqf
    Commented Sep 26, 2021 at 3:10

2 Answers 2

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Additionally, is there any significant support by Republican voters for impeachment, or is this a purely partisan issue by Democrats right now?

According to Public Policy Polling (PDF), only 8% of self-identified Donald Trump voters think that he should be impeached. 89% think that he should not be impeached. Overall 45% of voters oppose impeachment and 44% support it. Using voting for Trump as an proxy for Republicans, this suggests that it is mostly Democrats who support impeachment.

The statement is even stronger if you describe partisanship as Trump voters vs. Hillary Clinton voters, as that is what the poll actually measured. For completeness, Clinton voters say 78% to 8% that he should be impeached.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said:

Number two — here is the bad part — if you start waterboarding people, you may get impeached. Is that a fair summary?

That suggests that he believes waterboarding would be an impeachable offense. It's not clear why it wasn't also an impeachable offense when George W. Bush was president.

Other Senators haven't issued specific red lines for impeachment that I've seen. We can reasonably guess that John McCain would join Graham on waterboarding.

As a general rule, Republican politicians would prefer Mike Pence to Trump. So if Trump looks to be losing his overwhelming support among Republican voters, they might be quite willing to impeach. That said, while he keeps his popularity, the politicians are unlikely to defy the voters.

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    I think "may" is a key word in Graham's quote.
    – Colin
    Commented May 13, 2017 at 4:56
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    "That said, while he keeps his popularity" = he's well below 50% in polls right now. Which, actually, I guess that is surprisingly high given what we're watching.
    – user1530
    Commented May 13, 2017 at 5:43
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    @blip If you read my answer, you will note that the line before "That said, while he keeps his popularity" says "his overwhelming support among Republican voters". From that, you should be able to understand that I am referring to his popularity specifically among Republican voters. I shouldn't have to repeat that each and every time I use words like popularity.
    – Brythan
    Commented May 13, 2017 at 12:33
  • @Brythan if you read my comment, you will note that I'm actually agreeing with you. :)
    – user1530
    Commented May 13, 2017 at 16:44
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    @blip as I recall the polls have his popularity rating at rather low even amongst republicans. They may not be interested in impeaching him, but there is a difference between "impeachable" and "unpopular, but not justifying impeachment". Mostly because the constitution does a poor job of defining what is an impeachable offense
    – dsollen
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 19:42
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Because the question is asking about the Republican point of view, I am going to answer from the Republican point of view. In other words, as a starting point to an answer, you need to understand how Republicans look at it, regardless of whether or not you agree.

A lot of Republicans are deeply put off by the impeachment drumbeat, which started before Trump even took office.

One reason for Republican skepticism is their view that the Clinton investigation wasn't serious. If an investigation that starts with the idea of "collusion between Trump and Russia" leads to an investigation that ends up with a crime involving (say) Stormy Daniels, they are going to say, wait a minute, you went after the Trump people hard, and even changed the subject to find a crime, but you ignored obvious and serious criminal conduct by Clinton. That kind of double standard is not going to play well with Republicans, even though a lot of them don't really like Trump.

An additional problem is that a lot of Republicans believe the Mueller investigation was itself trumped-up. If the FBI used information paid for by the Clinton campaign to start an investigation of Trump, that again shows a serious bias. And assertions that the information was only "partly used" or the like aren't going to make much difference.

On top of all the above, Republicans see reason to doubt the neutrality of at least two judges who have been involved with portions of the investigation.

The upshot is that because a lot of Republicans see so many problems with the investigation, it would take something really serious coming out of it to get much Republican support.

EDIT: Republicans demonstrate, again, that they see the situation along the lines discussed above.

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    This answer doesn't really address the question, though. It says why republicans will argue against impeachment, but not if any actually support it or what it would take to actually support it.
    – user1530
    Commented Apr 18, 2018 at 18:02
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    This is a case where arguments that are likely to be made are the same as reasons. This is actually illustrated quite well by the comment above. The commenter appears to believe, no doubt sincerely, that the Republican arguments would not represent their actual reasons. Therefore, seeing a post about reasons, he or she takes it as arguments. Hence the above comment. It's the same with Republicans and this investigation. There is a severe lack of trust. Therefore, if the investigation doesn't come up with something really serious, they aren't likely to buy it.
    – William Jockusch
    Commented Apr 19, 2018 at 0:26
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    Just how serious is unknowable by me, or anyone, really. I'll go out on a limb and say that if Mueller came up with convincing proof that Donald Trump was the Zodiac killer, they would impeach. But if it's about a payment to Stormy Daniels, the vast majority would not.
    – William Jockusch
    Commented Apr 19, 2018 at 0:31
  • So, perhaps the answer at this time is "no republican has said what it will take to support impeachment"?
    – user1530
    Commented Apr 19, 2018 at 0:35
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    The question was about the Republican point of view. That would be the Democratic point of view. The reasons the Republicans don't see it that way are described above.
    – William Jockusch
    Commented Apr 19, 2018 at 1:50

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