White House aide: We think Republicans might actually impeach Obama

A top White House aide said Friday morning that he believes a GOP impeachment attempt against President Obama is becoming increasingly likely.

Speaking at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters that Speaker Boehner's planned lawsuit against the President Obama has increased the chances of an impeachment effort. According to the Huffington Post, he said:

"I think a lot of people in this town laugh that off. I would not discount that possibility. I think that Speaker Boehner by going down this path of this lawsuit has opened the door to Republicans possibly considering impeachment at some point in the future."

Pfeiffer cited a poll showing most Republican voters wanted Obama impeached, and speculated that the lawsuit wouldn't be enough to satisfy hardline conservatives, with Sarah Palin publicly calling for impeachment. Furthermore, Pfeiffer said that Obama's planned executive action to limit deportations of unauthorized immigrants later this year would "certainly up the likelihood that they'll contemplate impeachment," according to TalkingPointsMemo.

For their part, Boehner and top House Republicans have repeatedly said they don't want to impeach the president. "He has not committed the kind of criminal acts that call for that," House Judiciary Committee chair Bob Goodlatte said recently. And Vox's Ezra Klein argued that impeachment was unlikely here.

You can read more about Boehner's lawsuit against the president here, and about how impeachment would actually work here.

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