House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Sunday that even though Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash recently called for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, it is unlikely that an impeachment trial will be successful in the Senate.

Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation, Schiff said, “We see no signs of that yet.”

“I respect what Justin Amash is doing and has said,” Schiff added. “But what may be pushing us in the direction of impeachment in any event has less to do with Justin Amash and more to do with the fact that the administration is engaging in a maximum obstructionism campaign against Congress.”

Rep. Adam Schiff says impeachment proceedings against President Trump could be a "tool" to get information and evidence that the administration is blocking from Congress https://t.co/WQw5C7PoEr pic.twitter.com/1lXo5BoWpy — CBS News (@CBSNews) May 19, 2019

Amash, a self-described libertarian who has long been one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, became the first GOP lawmaker to call for the president’s impeachment Saturday. Amash took to Twitter to say that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report “reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment.” He also said that few members of Congress have read the full report.


“While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct,” Amash tweeted.

While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct. — Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019

In his report released earlier this month, Mueller detailed 10 separate incidents in which the president acted to impede the investigation into him or his ties to Russia. While some senate Republicans, including Mitt Romney (UT) and Susan Collins (ME), have expressed disapproval over the Mueller report’s findings, they have stopped short of condemning the acts as obstruction of justice or as a cause for removal.

“I think those who are considering impeachment also have to look at the jury, which would be the Senate,” Romney told CNN on Sunday. “The Senate is certainly not there either.”


While Schiff said he didn’t think impeachment would be successful, he conceded that impeachment proceedings could provide an “additional tool” for Democrats to obtain the information and evidence that the Trump administration has not provided to Congress.

“I think that we are seeing more members that recognize that the administration is acting in a lawless fashion, essentially having obstructed justice is now obstructing Congress and our lawful function,” he said. “And if we conclude that there is no other way to do our jobs, no other way to do the oversight, no other way to show the American people what this president has done, his unethical and illegal acts, as outlined in the Mueller report, then we may get there.”