October 10, 2018 09:30 AM UTC

Coffman Says He'd Consider Supporting Trump Impeachment

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• by: Colorado Pols

The candidates for Congress in CO-6 gathered for a debate on Tuesday in the “Colorado Decides” series hosted by CBS4 Denver, The Colorado Sun, Colorado Public Television, and radio stations 850 KOA and 630 KHOW.

Incumbent Congressman Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) and Democratic challenger Jason Crow addressed a number of topics in the 30-minute debate, but one topic stood out for Coffman specifically.

At about the 14:15 mark of the debate, CBS4 Denver’s Shaun Boyd asks the candidates about whether or not they would support potential impeachment proceedings against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and/or President Trump. Here’s the exchange between CBS4 political reporter Shaun Boyd and Coffman:

BOYD: If Democrats do in fact take control of the House, and they bring impeachment proceedings against Judge Kavanaugh and/or President Trump, would you support that?

COFFMAN: We’ll have to see what the evidence is. I’m just surprised, I think [unintelligible]…the issue of Judge Kavanaugh has been fairly litigated. I’m very disappointed, though. I think the Republicans in the Senate made a mistake by not making that FBI report public, to where the American people can see that prior to the vote. I think that was a mistake. Taking the word of the Senators that in fact there was no additional information there.

We have to wait and see where the Mueller investigation goes, as to whether or not it justifies impeachment proceedings. 

BOYD: If it finds collusion, between the Trump administration and Russia, would you support impeachment?

COFFMAN: If it’s a violation of law.

BOYD: You would support impeachment?

COFFMAN: If it’s a violation of law.

BOYD: You would, then, support it. [Pols emphasis]

This is a pretty astonishing answer from Coffman, in part because it opens up the question for every other Republican incumbent in America.

The Aurora Republican has largely embraced President Trump since the 2016 election — even going so far as to say that the FBI itself should be investigated for wrongdoing related to Trump. Now Coffman is intimating that Robert Mueller’s special investigation into potential Russian collusion should be heard and might even convince him to boot out the leader of his own party.

Of course, Coffman fully understands the danger of Trump as the President relates to his own re-election, which is where his natural instinct for gutless political triangulation comes into play. Coffman sees the same polls showing him trailing Crow, driven in part by the large percentage of female voters abandoning the Republican Party, so he’s doing what he does best: Telling voters whatever he thinks they want to hear.