Rep. Beto O'Rourke, a Texas Democrat challenging Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Tx.) in 2018, said Monday he had seen enough evidence that he would vote to impeach President Donald Trump.
He added that he didn't think that impeachment made sense "right now," but that he'd wait for the facts to be "so compelling" that there would be bipartisan support for impeachment, The Daily Beast reported.
Radio host Chad Hasty asked "if elected" to the Senate whether O'Rourke would vote to impeach the president, seemingly forgetting that only House members vote on that measure.
"Have you seen enough yet to where you would vote to impeach the president?" Hasty asked.
"The answer is yes, because I want to be straight with you," O'Rourke responded. "I've seen an attempt, no matter how ham-handed, to collude with a foreign government in our national election."
O'Rourke continued that he had seen an effort to obstruct justice in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
"I don't think that President Trump has the fitness, or competence, or judgement to be in that position," he added.
He noted an impeachment is a de facto indictment, which would then lead the Senate to vote on whether to convict the president and remove him from office.
However, O'Rourke proceeded to qualify his comments. "As a prospective senator we must await all the facts, all the truth, all the information, forthcoming from the Bob Mueller investigation," he said.
He said that he wanted to get to the point in the investigation where Republican lawmakers can justify voting for Trump's impeachment to their constituents.
"We are not there yet," he said.