Rep. Mike Quigley (D., Ill.) said on Tuesday that some of his Republican colleagues are "complicit" in obstructing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
CNN anchor Jim Sciutto asked Quigley whether the recent filings by Mueller's team show President Donald Trump committed any impeachable offenses.
"I'll put it this way: the president has abused his power. We have seen detailed accounts of the Trump financial and political world forging ties with a foreign adversary for their own political and financial gain. I believe there has been an effort, a conspiracy to work with Russians toward that end. I believe the President of the United States obstructed this investigation and others joined in that obstruction," Quigley said. "And I believe my Republican counterparts were complicit in that obstruction."
"These are extraordinary statements. But I was a criminal defense attorney for 10 years. I know that you don't stop an investigation halfway through because you think you have enough. You want to find out everything because you want to protect the American public," Quigley added.
House Republicans investigated whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and in March of this year, they released a report claiming to have found no evidence of collusion. Democrats criticized the report, saying Republicans ended the investigation before getting all the facts. Some Democrats alleged Republicans failed to conduct a thorough investigation to protect the president.
Last Friday, two court filings were submitted in regards to Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former personal attorney Michael Cohen. In regards to the Cohen filing, prosecutors allege Cohen acted at the direction of Trump, referred to as Individual-1 in court documents, when he made payments during the 2016 campaign to several women, who allegedly who had sexual relations with Trump, in order for them to stay silent.
Trump called the payments a "simple private transaction" and repeated his claim that there was no collusion.
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