Elizabeth Warren is the first candidate to call for impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Warren joined Rachel Maddow on Friday night following a series of tweets in which the Massachusetts senator.
Tweeted Warren: ‘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. 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 added: ‘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 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 told Maddow: “I was on an airplane yesterday and started reading [the Mueller Report] and I read it way into the night last night and I got to the end and realized, this is about a point of principle. The report is absolutely clear, that a foreign government attacked our electoral system to help Donald Trump, he welcomed that help and then when it was investigated by our own federal authorities, Donald Trump took multiple steps to try to obstruct justice.”
Warren added: “This isn’t about politics, this isn’t even specifically about Donald Trump himself. It is about what a president of the United States should be able to do and what the role of Congress is in saying, ‘no, a president does not get to come in and stop an investigation about a foreign power that attacked this country or an investigation about his own wrongdoing.’ Equal justice under law. No one is above the law and that includes the president of the United States. It is the constitutional responsibility of Congress to follow through on that.”
