O’Rourke flighty on right time to impeach

The claim: “For more than a year, I have been saying that it’s time for Congress to act and begin impeachment proceedings.” — Democrat Beto O’Rourke.

O’Rourke, one of the first presidential candidates from his party to call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, made the statement during an interview on MSNBC.

PolitiFact ruling: Mostly False. It’s true that O’Rourke has said for more than ayear that he would personally support impeaching Trump, but he consistently has said that he was not calling on Congress to take action. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.

Discussion: Spokesman Chris Evans said O’Rourke has been “consistent in saying that he would vote for impeachment in the House.”

Evans said O’Rourke made comments about impeachment throughout his campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, last year. He also noted that Cruz’s campaign “regularly mentioned” O’Rourke’s stance on impeachment during the race.

“Saying he would vote to impeach the president is saying he believes there is enough reason, enough justification, for Congress to take action,” Evans said in an email. “If he didn’t believe Congress should conduct those proceedings, he wouldn’t have repeatedly said he’d vote to do so.”

While O’Rourke, a former three-term congressman from El Paso, has said for more than a year he would personally support impeaching Trump, these statements often came with caveats. He did not issue adirect call for impeachment until last month.

He hasn’t been consistent in his public comments about whether “it’s time” for Congress to act on impeachment, and he voted twice against opening impeachment proceedings as a member of the House —first in 2017 and again in early 2018.

Evans shared eight news articles when asked to produce evidence for O’Rourke’s claim. They all include references showing his personal support for impeachment, but none show the Democrat explicitly stating that “it’s time” for Congress to act.

Among those stories, O’Rourke came the closest to saying it’s time for Congress to act in a July 2018 interview with The Dallas Morning News, which quoted O’Rourke as saying: “Impeachment, much like an indictment, shows that there is enough there for the case to proceed and, at this point, there is certainly enough there for the case to proceed.”

PolitiFact dissected O’Rourke’s stance on impeachment in July 2018 (while fact-checking a Cruz claim about O’Rourke’s stance) in a piece titled: How Beto O’Rourke is a yes and no on impeaching Donald Trump now.

O’Rourke had made numerous statements about impeachment that boil down to this: “He’d personally vote as a House member to impeach Trump, O’Rourke says, but he’s not in favor of that happening at this time.”

Evans told PolitiFact at the time that O’Rourke had not called for Trump’s impeachment and he hasn’t brought up the subject “at town halls or rallies, has not sent fundraising or petition emails on it, has not posted social media advocating for it, and has not used his current position of public trust to do so through floor speeches, letters or resolutions.”

And that remained the case through the end of his Senate campaign and the start of his presidential campaign in 2019.

But by May, O’Rourke said he explicitly supported impeaching Trump in yet another interview with The Dallas Morning News.

“We’re finally learning the truth about this president,” he said. “And yes, there has to be consequences. Yes, there has to be accountability. Yes, I think there’s enough evidence now for the House of Representatives to move forward with impeachment.”

For more on the research and the conclusion, visit Politifact Texas, www.politifact.com/texas/