After special counsel Robert Mueller’s highly-anticipated report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between Trump’s campaign team and Kremlin officials was released on Thursday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s husband George Conway and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) both threw their support behind launching impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the hashtag #ImpeachTrump is trending on Twitter.
The 448-page report, with redactions, which was released by Attorney General William Barr on Thursday morning, details the nearly two-year investigation, which resulted in 199 criminal charges and 34 individuals and organizations facing indictments or pleading guilty — including six former Trump associates and three groups linked to the Russian government. Mueller stated in the report that he did not establish that Trump’s campaign team had conspired with Russian officials to influence the election. Although the special counsel’s probe doesn’t determine whether the president obstructed justice, Mueller concluded that Trump failed to obstruct justice “largely because” his aides refused to “carry out orders.”
Following the report’s release, Ocasio-Cortez vowed to sign onto fellow freshman Democratic lawmaker Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (Mich.) resolution calling for an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee into whether Trump committed impeachable offenses.
“Mueller’s report is clear in pointing to Congress’ responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the President,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the US Constitution. As such, I’ll be signing onto @RashidaTlaib’s impeachment resolution.”
When Tlaib introduced the resolution last month, she said her intention in doing so is to ensure “we don’t have a lawless society that results in irreparable harm to the American people.”
Mueller’s report is clear in pointing to Congress’ responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the President.
It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
As such, I’ll be signing onto @RashidaTlaib’s impeachment resolution. https://t.co/CgPZJiULOL
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 18, 2019
Conway expressed similar thoughts in a Washington Post op-ed, published on Thursday, where he called Mueller’s report “damning,” condemned Trump as a “cancer in the presidency” and encouraged Congress to remove him from office based on findings from the special counsel’s investigation.
“The investigation that Trump tried to interfere with here, to protect his own personal interests, was in significant part an investigation of how a hostile foreign power interfered with our democracy,” Conway wrote. “If that’s not putting personal interests above a presidential duty to the nation, nothing is.”
“Congress now bears the solemn constitutional duty to excise that cancer without delay,” he added.
Other Democrats, including Reps. Al Green, Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, have also expressed support for moving to impeach the president after the release of Mueller’s report. During a Thursday press conference, Green, who has previously pushed for Trump’s removal from office, said that Muller’s findings have “given us ample evidence to move forward with impeachment.”
Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asserted that the report “outlines disturbing evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction of justice” and urged Congress to hold Trump accountable.
“Regardless of whether the obstructive acts described by Mueller was criminal or whether the litany of illicit contacts with Russia rose to the level of conspiracy, they’re dishonest, unethical, and unpatriotic,” Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted. “Mueller’s report is not a vindication of Trump, but a condemnation.”
However, Democrats are still divided on whether to follow through with impeachment proceedings. After seeing Mueller’s report, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNN’s Dana Bash that he doesn’t believe pursuing impeachment would be “worthwhile… at this point.”
Not for the first time, #ImpeachTrump is currently trending on Twitter, with prominent political figures and ordinary citizens utilizing the hashtag to convey their belief that the president deserves to be removed from office over the findings in Mueller’s report.
In August 2017, the hashtag became the top trending phrase on Twitter when Trump said both sides were to blame for the violence that occurred during the Charlottesville white supremacist rally where one woman was killed.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on April 10, 2019 in Washington, DC. Ocasio-Cortez and George Conway back impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report today. Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images
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