Former Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid warned his party against further talk of trying to start impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
"I say to everybody, stop it," he said. In an interview with NBC News.
"I’ve been through impeachment, and they’re not pleasant. And the less we talk about impeachment the better off we are."
Still, he said, U.S. institutions have been "decimated" under Trump and he claimed Republicans did not do enough about Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Reid blamed former FBI Director James Comey and billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, for the fact Americans didn’t learn earlier about the Russian interference.
Reid recalled sending a letter to Comey in October 2016 asking why he was withholding "explosive" information about Trump and Russia.
Looking back now, he said: "Well, I’m right."
And he said Republicans fear the Koch brothers, who spend millions of dollars backing GOP candidates and causes.
Reid noted he had approached a Republican colleague to ask why he hadn’t helped spread more public information about the Russian meddling.
The GOP lawmaker replied: "Because I was afraid they (the Kochs) would go after me.”
He called congressional Republicans the “limpest waffle you’ve ever seen" Reid maintained they’ve done “everything they can” to damage the judiciary and legislative branches of the U.S.
"It’s Trump’s party now," Reid said.
"With the Republicans, I’m not mad, I’m just terribly disappointed in what they’ve done to the institution. I believe the federal government has been so harmed, the legislative branch has been decimated, judicial decimated, checks and balances sliding out the door.
"Our democracy will survive but it’s going to be tough," he said.
Reid, a Nevada Democrat, retired from the Senate in January 2017, concluding a 30-year career, according to KTVN.
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