Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, has called for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump, becoming the first major 2020 candidate to do so.
“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,” the senator tweeted on Friday afternoon.
“The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty,” she continued. “That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.”
According to reporter MJ Lee of CNN , Warren read the Mueller Report Thursday while on a flight from Salt Lake City to Boston, and decided afterward that it was her “duty” to make such a statement; and also that a call for impeachment will not form the basis for Warren’s presidential campaign.
Warren, as a senator, cannot open an impeachment inquiry, as such efforts must begin in the House of Representatives.
Several members of the House, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, have called for impeaching Trump as early as January. Tlaib introduced a new impeachment resolution on Thursday, with co-sponsors included Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Al Green of Texas, per Roll Call.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week that Democrats will hold a conference call on Monday to address the impeachment question, Roll Call said, although Pelosi has been skeptical in the past about the utility of pursuing impeachment against Trump, per The Inquisitr. The speaker said in a 60 Minutes interview in January that the impeachment of Trump is “not worth it.”
“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.” https://t.co/eshx992AEt
— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) April 19, 2019
Some Democrats believe that pursuit of impeachment is useless as long as the Republicans keep a majority in the U.S. Senate, as a two-thirds majority in the Senate is needed in order ensure conviction and removal from office. President Bill Clinton, in late 1998, was impeached by the Republican-led House, but was not convicted in the Senate.
Elizabeth Warren, a second-term U.S. Senator, has been praised in the early going of the campaign for ambitious policy proposals, although she’s been criticized for her handling of her claim of Cherokee heritage. The candidate took a DNA test late last year, which showed she had a tiny amount of such genetic heritage. Warren apologized to the Cherokee Nation for doing so in February, per The Inquisitr.
