Iran Press/America: Elizabeth Warren on Friday became the most senior Democrat, and the first 2020 presidential candidate, to call for the start of impeachment proceedings against president Donald Trump following the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 US election and the Trump campaign, MSNBC reported.
“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,” the Democratic senator from Massachusetts said in a statement Friday, one day after the release of a redacted version of a 448-page summary of Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation.
“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 said.
Mueller did not make a conclusion about whether the president unlawfully obstructed justice, but did outline nearly a dozen cases in which the president had attempted to stop the inquiry or narrow its scope.
Warren’s remarks make her one of the most prominent Democratic voices to advocate for impeachment, joining congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. Those progressive House members have pushed a formal impeachment resolution.
Meanwhile President Trump has used an expletive to describe portions of Robert Mueller's report. President Trump called some statements provided by witnesses in special counsel Robert Mueller's report "total bull***t" in a series of Friday morning tweets.
"Because I never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the 'Report' about me, some of which are total bull***t & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad)."
The big picture: Trump also tweeted to "watch out for people that take so-called 'notes,'" likely a reference to one of the report's most-reported passages, where the president questioned why then-White House counsel Don McGahn took notes during their conversations.
According to details McGahn and others provided to the Mueller's team, Donald Trump had instructed McGahn to contact Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to have Mueller fired. McGahn did not carry out Trump's order.
Refusals from McGahn — and other top White House staffers — to obey such presidential directives are part of the reason why Trump ultimately avoided obstruction of justice charges in Mueller's investigation.
Worth noting: According to the report, when Trump learned of Mueller's appointment from then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the president said, "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency."
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