Tuesday from the Senate floor for 40 minutes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called for the impeachment of President Donald Trump in response to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) comments stating it was “case closed” on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Warren opened by saying, “This separation of powers is part of the brilliance of our Constitution, and it has served us well for centuries. Yes, I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and so did everybody in the Senate and the House, including the majority leader. And now we must act to fulfill that oath. There is no political inconvenience exception to the United States Constitution. If any other human being in this country had done what’s documented in the Mueller report, they would be arrested and put in jail.”
After reading extensively from the Mueller report, Warren concluded, “More than 600 federal prosecutors have now said that what’s laid out in the Mueller report would constitute obstruction of justice, and would trigger a prosecution for any human being in this country other than the president of the United States. Robert Mueller put all of the facts together for us, put all of the information together for us, and abided by the Trump administration declaration under the office of legal counsel that a sitting president cannot be indicted for his crimes. He handed it over to the Congress of the United States of America to do our constitutional duty. We are a government that works by separation of powers. We are not a government that circles the wagon around a leader and says everything else falls away. Instead, we say there are powers that are given to the president, and powers that are given to Congress, and each operates as a check on the other.
She continued, “The information that has been given to us in the Mueller report clearly constitutes adequate information to begin an impeachment proceeding in the House of Representatives. No matter how many times Mitch McConnell or the rest of the Republicans want to wish that away, it’s there, in black and white in the report. I urge every Republican in this chamber, I urge every Republican and Democrat in Congress, I urge every person in this country, to read the Mueller report. Robert Mueller makes clear that the president of the United States worked actively to obstruct Justice. There is enough here to bring an impeachment proceeding. And for us, for this body, for Congress, to back up from that, and to say that protecting the president is more important than protecting the constitution, is not only wrong, it is a violation of our oath of office.”
She added, “I’m here to say one more time, in publicly, this is not a fight I wanted to take on, but this is the fight in front of us now. This is not about politics. This is about the Constitution of the United States of America. We took an oath, not to try to protect Donald Trump, we took an oath to protect the Constitution and serve the Constitution of the United States of America. And the way we do that is we begin impeachment proceedings now against this president.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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