Some Democrats are agitating for Donald Trump’s impeachment following the release of a redacted version of Robert Mueller’s report on Monday.
Others, however, don’t feel such a proceeding would be worth it. And still others didn’t have much to say on the topic.
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New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among the Democratic voices pushing for impeachment Monday.
In a tweet, she said she’s signing on to a resolution by Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the same congresswoman who said, “we’re going to impeach the motherf*****” on her first day in office.
“Mueller’s report is clear in pointing to Congress’ responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the president,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
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“It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. As such, I’ll be signing on to Rashida Tlaib’s impeachment resolution.”
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Tlaib submitted a resolution late last month that calls on the House Judiciary Committee to look into whether Trump has committed offenses that would warrant impeachment, CNN reported.
At the time, only a single other congressman — Texas Rep. Al Green — signed the resolution.
By Thursday, however, it had drawn the support of both Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar.
The Democrat from Minnesota said it’s part of Congress’ “constitutional responsibility” to look at whether Trump committed offenses warranting impeachment such as collusion, obstruction of justice, abuse of power and violating the emoluments clause, otherwise known as the Title of Nobility Clause.
Past efforts to move on impeachment, however, have not been successful.
Democrats have tried to force votes on such proceedings twice, but won only a maximum of 60 votes. That’s well short of the 218 needed to pass them.
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Other Democrats were far less enthusiastic about impeaching Trump following the release of the Mueller report.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said impeachment is “not worthwhile at this point,” in an interview with CNN.
“Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgment.”
Also lukewarm to impeachment was Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
He told Politico, “I am certain that Congress has additional action we need to take, but we need to follow the proper processes… it doesn’t have to be impeachment, it can be other hearings.”
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Largely missing from talk of impeachment on Monday was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
She made clear last month that she’s not in favour of impeachment, that it’s “so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country.”
The special counsel’s report noted that investigators decided not to charge the president with obstruction of justice because they didn’t find an underlying crime.
But they also said, “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.”
That was not stated.
The report added, “we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a president’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.”
- With files from Rahul Kalvapalle
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