Chabot: Certainly I think anybody who reads the report is going to see that there were things that he or anyone could have done differently. But we weren’t in that same situation that he was. And the issue comes down to, did he obstruct justice? And the attorney general determined that he did not. Or at least there was, you know, insufficient grounds to prove it or make a case that he did.

Berman: You read the report yourself. You read the descriptions of the actions that Mueller acknowledged could be construed as obstruction of justice, and you’ve served on the Judiciary Committee for a long time. Did you personally see obstruction in those actions? Or did you see appropriate actions by the president?

Chabot: I did not see obstruction of justice myself. I’ll just leave it there.

Berman: Was there anything in that section that concerned you, whether it was the president asking the FBI director to let go of the Michael Flynn investigation or telling [White House Counsel] Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller repeatedly? Did any of those things concern you? Do you think that was the right thing for the president to do?

Chabot: I think when you study almost anybody as closely and with such a fine-tooth comb as the president was studied, you’re always going to find instances where a person’s judgment can be second-guessed. But that’s not the standard we use to determine whether we ought to impeach a president or not. It’s whether he committed high crimes and misdemeanors. And I think there’s no evidence that that’s the case, or that you could ever prove a case of that nature.

Berman: You’re obviously just one of two Republicans who are on the committee who were around for the last impeachment of a president. Do you regret that vote, or do you think that Clinton committed impeachable offenses in lying about his sexual activity, and do you stand by that?

Chabot: I do stand by it. I think he did commit an impeachable offense—that’s why I voted that way. And there are a lot of differences. President Clinton put his hand on the Bible, swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And then he lied. He perjured himself. And we had hundreds of people at the time that were in jail around the country for that very thing, and so I think perjury is a high crime and misdemeanor. And that’s why I voted that way. And we had the Starr report, which was somewhat similar to the Mueller report, and there were 11 grounds on which he recommended that we move forward on impeachment. Trump didn’t perjure himself. He was never under oath. And also Mueller did not recommend that there was an impeachable offense. So both things.

Berman: If Mueller had made a decision on obstruction—if he had concluded that Trump committed a crime, even if he couldn’t charge him while in office—or if he had made a more explicit impeachment referral to Congress, would that have weighed on you?