Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said in a series of tweets that not only does the Mueller report released on Thursday not clear President Donald Trump of charges of collusion with the Russians, but that efforts to obstruct justice by interfering with the special counsel’s investigation into the matter require starting impeachment proceedings.
“The Mueller report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack,” Warren tweeted.
“Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress: ‘Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.’ The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment,” Warren tweeted.
“To ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways,” Warren tweeted.
“The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States,” Warren tweeted.
In the wake of the release of the 400-page Mueller report that took two years to complete, Republicans feel they and Trump are vindicated because it concluded there was no collusion between Trump or anyone involved in the 2016 campaign and Russia.
It left open the possibility that Trump could have tried to impede the investigation but stopped short of concluding that he obstructed justice.
Warren joins a few other Democrats who have called for impeachment, mostly from far-left members of the party.
Some, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have resisted calls for impeachment.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.
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