By Elliott Davis
Capital News Service
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has shared his support for a Congressional impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, saying at one point that the allegations are “troubling and disturbing.”
The governor’s series of comments this week comes after Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump, following a whistleblower complaint that said he asked the president of Ukraine to investigate a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Politico first reported Hogan’s comments in a PBS “Firing Line” segment expected to air Friday night, in which he says he supports the inquiry because he doesn’t “see any other way to get the facts.” He did clarify that he’s concerned about whether the inquiry could be “a fair, objective one” with Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, according to Politico.
“I think we do need an inquiry because we have to get to the bottom of it,” Hogan said. “I’m not ready to say I support impeachment and the removal of the president, but I do think we should have an impeachment inquiry.”
Hogan also spoke Thursday at an event in New York City hosted by Yahoo! Finance and said he was “very concerned” and “very troubled” by the allegations against Trump, according to The Baltimore Sun.
“I’m troubled by all of the allegations, all of the things that are taking place, all of the things that are being said,” Hogan said.
Hogan spokeswoman Shareese Churchill had not responded to a request for comment Friday afternoon.
The Republican governor also appeared at an event Monday at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. In a video posted to a Georgetown Twitter account and first reported by the Washington Examiner, Hogan answers a question from a student about impeachment.
“I said it was very troubling and disturbing and we do need to get to the bottom of the facts,” Hogan said. “Absolutely we do. I’m very concerned about it. But am I ready to say that the president should be impeached? No. I don’t have the ability to make that decision.”
Hogan also said “nonpartisanship is the best way to conduct these hearings,” and spoke of the country’s “divisiveness.”
“There’s way too much opinion and not enough reporting of the facts so that people can make their own opinion,” he said, according to the university Twitter account. “This is part of the problem of divisiveness in America.”
Asked via email Tuesday what Hogan was referring to, Churchill told Capital News Service that there was “nothing further to add.”
“The governor’s statements speak for (themselves),” Churchill wrote in an email.
Maryland’s governor has spoken about impeachment before, but not in this context.
During his first inauguration address, in January 2015, Hogan spoke about his father, former Maryland congressman Lawrence Hogan Sr., being the first Republican on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to call for President Richard Nixon’s impeachment in 1974 despite “tremendous pressure” and the “entire world watching.”
Hogan Sr. was eventually the only Republican member of the committee to vote for all three articles of impeachment, according to his Washington Post obituary.
“Dad put aside party politics and his own personal considerations in order to do the right thing for the nation,” Hogan said during the speech, getting emotional. “… And he taught me more about integrity in one day than most men learn in a lifetime.”
