Following a pair of polls showing that a significant number of Americans support Barack Obama’s impeachment and removal from office, a high-ranking White House source expressed concern that such an effort will pick up steam. In a statement to reporters Friday, senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer explained that he no longer looks at impeachment as a GOP pipe dream.
“I saw a poll today that had a huge portion of the Republican Party base saying they supported impeaching the president,” he asserted.
While Pfeiffer acknowledged that many in D.C. would “laugh that off,” he took a much more realistic view of the fledgling effort among GOP leaders.
“I would not discount that possibility,” he said.
He went on to explain that House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to sue Obama for his excessive use of executive power will likely keep the issue at the forefront of many Americans’ minds.
“Speaker Boehner,” Pfeiffer said, “by going down the path of this lawsuit, has opened the door to Republicans possibly considering impeachment at some point in the future.”
He concluded that Obama’s own policy initiatives could also make the possibility of impeachment more appealing to Republican lawmakers.
“I think that if the president enacted immigration reform, that would certainly up the likelihood that they would contemplate impeachment,” he reasoned.
In the end, impeachment is a notion that Pfeiffer said the administration takes “very seriously,” stating that he is against the pursuit of any such measure.
“But I think it would be foolish to discount the possibility that Republicans would at least consider going down that path,” he concluded.