Rep. Jason Crow told CNN impeachment is a tool Democrats could use if they win the midterms to end what he calls Trump’s “corruption” and push Pete Hegseth from the Pentagon.
On Wednesday, the Colorado Democrat appeared on CNN’s “The Arena” and answered a direct question from anchor Kasie Hunt about whether impeaching President Donald Trump should be a Democratic priority. Crow did not dodge. He cast the constitutional process as a means to a set of political ends, not an end in itself.
Crow’s answer matters because it previews how House Democrats may govern if they regain a majority. He tied the “tool” of impeachment to removing a Pentagon official, reversing trade policy, and what he labeled corruption, goals that sound like a governing agenda dressed up as accountability.
Hunt put the choice in plain terms.
Breitbart News carried the exchange from the CNN segment.
"When you talk about impeachment, do you think Democrats should also have as a priority, impeaching President Trump?"
Crow answered by first reciting his own role in Trump’s first impeachment. He said he served as an impeachment prosecutor and was one of a handful of House managers who presented the case on the Senate floor. He claimed he warned senators then about the “danger” Trump poses and said the president “should have been removed from office then.”
Then he shifted to the larger point he wanted viewers to hear.
"Well, impeachment is something I know a lot about. I mean, I was an impeachment prosecutor in the first impeachment trial. I literally was one of those handful of House managers that sat there on the Senate floor and made the case to the Senate and warned them then, the danger that Donald Trump poses. And unfortunately, we’ve been proven right time and time again. He should have been removed from office then. So I know a lot about it. But impeachment, and this is really important, impeachment is a tool, a tool to achieve an end. The end is accountability. Ending corruption, cleaning up the government, protecting Americans, protecting our service members. Those are the goals, right? So the focus shouldn’t be on any one tool."
That framing treats impeachment as flexible hardware. The “end,” in Crow’s telling, is a list of outcomes Democrats want, not a fixed showing of high crimes tied to a single set of facts.
Crow went further. He said he would use impeachment if he decides it is the right instrument, then listed the results he wants.
"I mean, I will use impeachment as a tool if I think that’s the right tool to use to achieve the goal. But the goal is in my case, let’s get Pete Hegseth out of the Pentagon. Let’s make sure we clean up the corruption. Let’s make sure we end this endless war. Let’s make sure we end the trade wars so we can save our farmers and our ranchers and our small businesses and our restaurants who are going under in droves right now."
Read that list again. Getting Pete Hegseth “out of the Pentagon” sits beside ending “trade wars” and an unnamed “endless war.” Crow also repeated the charge of “corruption” without spelling out new articles of impeachment, new evidence, or a new legal theory on air.
He presented those aims as the reason to keep impeachment on the table if Democrats take the House in the midterms. The process becomes leverage for personnel and policy fights Democrats are already losing in a Republican-led executive branch.
Crow stressed that “the focus shouldn’t be on any one tool.” In practice, that line lowers the bar. If the goal is cleaning up government as Democrats define it, or saving restaurants Crow says are “going under in droves,” then the House majority gets to decide when the nuclear option fits the moment.
He did not describe a completed investigation, a special counsel referral, or a bipartisan set of findings. He described a conditional plan: win the midterms, keep impeachment handy, and use it when it advances the agenda he sketched, Hegseth’s exit, an end to trade fights, and the corruption label he applied to Trump.
Voters who remember two prior impeachments will hear the sequel talk early. Crow made his past service as a House manager a credential, then used it to normalize the next round as ordinary oversight rather than an extraordinary constitutional step.
He also folded “protecting our service members” into the same breath as partisan personnel goals. That pairing lets Democrats claim high purpose while aiming at a specific Pentagon figure and at trade policies they oppose.
The CNN appearance did not supply a calendar date beyond “Wednesday,” a full bill of particulars, or named statutes. It did supply intent. A sitting Democratic member who helped run the first Trump impeachment told a national audience he still sees the process as available hardware for ends he listed out loud.
Crow’s own words put policy outcomes, Hegseth, trade, “endless war”, inside the same frame as “accountability.” That is the news. Democrats do not have to hide the theory of the case anymore. One of their impeachment veterans said the quiet part as strategy: win the House, then decide whether impeachment is the right tool for the fight they want.
When members openly market impeachment as a multipurpose lever for personnel and trade disputes, they are not restoring norms, they are advertising the next power play.
