Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) said on Sunday that he was "far from" impeaching President Donald Trump.
CNN's "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper asked if Nadler, the incoming House Judiciary Committee chairman, had any plans to impeach Trump now that Democrats will control the House while the 116th U.S. Congress is in session.
"Do you plan to take any action to remove President Trump from office? Are you going to attempt impeachment? The New York Times reported you pitched yourself to your Democratic colleagues as, 'the strongest member to lead the potential impeachment,'" Tapper said.
"No, no, no. The key word is potential, if it comes up. No. Impeachment is a question that will come up down the road maybe, depending on the findings of the Mueller administration and of other investigations. We're far from that right now," Nadler said.
Tapper brought up how many Democrats want Trump to be impeached while many Republicans oppose it. He asked the congressman if he was concerned about how partisan the issue of impeachment has become.
"Not really because, as I said, we're far from that. If we get to the question of impeachment, then one of the tests should be ... is the evidence so strong of misdeeds so terrible that you really believe at the beginning of the process that by the end of the process, when all this is laid out publicly, a very large fraction of the people who voted for the president will grudgingly acknowledge to themselves and to others that you had no choice but to impeach the president? That is the test," Nadler said. "You don't want the country torn apart by half of the country saying for the next 30 years, 'we won the election, you stole it.' So one question before you do an impeachment is do you think the evidence of such terrible deeds is so strong that a large portion of the opposition vote base, of the president's vote base will be convinced by the end of the process?"
"And you're not there yet?" Tapper asked.
"We're far from–" Nadler said.
"You don't see anything?" Tapper asked.
"I see a lot of potentials, but we don't know. We're waiting to see what the special counsel finds. We're waiting to see what a fair investigation [finds]. The Republicans no the Intelligence Committee and Judiciary Committee made sure there was no fair investigation in Congress. There will be now," Nadler said. "And we'll see what that comes up with, what the special counsel's office comes up with. And then we'll have to make judgments. I certainly hope that we will not find the necessity for impeachment, but can't rule that out."