House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler labeled President Donald Trump “disgusting and racist” and said he is continuing to pursue an impeachment inquiry despite much “second-guessing” from critics about former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony last week.

The New York Democratic congressman responded to Trump’s Twitter attacks against Baltimore-based Representative Elijah Cummings, describing them as “racist” but also as a “distraction” from the Mueller hearings.

Nadler, speaking with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on This Week Sunday, said he was not surprised Trump was still working hard to cover up what Nadler has alleged was criminal collusion with the Russians during the 2016 presidential election.

Over the past several days, Trump has gone on an all-out offensive against Cummings and the city of Baltimore, accusing the Democrat of corruption and labeling the city “infested.”

“The president is as he usually is or often is, disgusting and racist. He makes these charges with no base at all,” Nadler said Sunday. “And they are designed to attract attention away from the very serious allegations about his conduct that came from the Mueller committee hearings this week.”

Nadler continued, “The fact is, the president accepted help from the Russians to attack our election to work with his campaign to work with the Russians, that is undisputed. He worked hard to cover up those crimes and committed more crimes in order to cover them up by urging others to lie to investigators. So he just tried to change the subject which what he usually does.”

Nadler agreed with Stephanopoulos’ assertion that whether or not the House is considering formal impeachment proceedings is just “semantics,” because his committee has continued to investigate the president and decide whether to approve articles of impeachment against Trump.

The congressman said the impeachment resolutions being considered involve violations of the emoluments clause and Trump’s “failure to defend the constitution against continuing Russian attacks.”

“We are investigating whether to report or approve articles of impeachments,” Nadler continued. “We have impeachment resolutions before the [House Judiciary] committee. We are conducting investigations to determine whether we should report those to the House or whether we should draft our own and report them to the House.”

Nadler dismissed criticism that Democrats had made a “mistake” by having Mueller testify publicly. He accused Attorney General William Barr and Trump of deploying a widespread disinformation campaign to distract and “lie to the American people” about exoneration.

“They lied to the American people about, they said the report found ‘no collusion’ and ‘no obstruction’ and totally exonerated the president — all three of those statements are lies,” Nadler said. “It was very important for Mueller to get up there and say just that. Remember, the heart of this is the Russians attacked our election and tried to influence our election to elect Trump.”

Source: Benjamin Fearnow, newsweek.com/jerry-nadler-trump-racist-disgusting-impeachment-investigation-russian-collusion-1451465