After Mueller's Statement, Booker and Harris Urge 'Impeachment Proceedings'

WASHINGTON — Reacting to Special Counsel Bob Mueller’s statement about the two-year Russia probe, Senators Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Congress should begin impeachment proceedings.

“Robert Mueller’s statement makes it clear: Congress has a legal and moral obligation to begin impeachment proceedings immediately,” Booker, a 2020 presidential candidate and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “This Administration has continued to stonewall Congress’s oversight. Beginning impeachment proceedings is the only path forward.”

Booker hasn’t expressed support for impeachment in the past.

Harris, a 2020 presidential candidate, argued that it is a “congressional obligation” to start impeachment proceedings.

“What Robert Mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. Now it is up to Congress to hold this president accountable,” Harris, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tweeted on Wednesday. “We need to start impeachment proceedings. It’s our constitutional obligation.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Mueller’s statement “reinforces the findings of his report.”

“As for me, the case is over. Mr. Mueller has decided to move on and let the report speak for itself. Congress should follow his lead,” Graham tweeted.

“As to obstruction, the Mueller team failed to reach a conclusion and turned that task over to the Attorney General. The AG, in concert with then-Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, decided that as a matter of fact and law, an obstruction case against President Trump was not warranted. As the Mueller report indicated, a possible obstruction case was a hodgepodge of complicated facts and law,” he added.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote that Mueller’s statement on Wednesday “makes clear that Congress has a right—we believe an obligation—to continue our constitutionally mandated oversight without interference or stonewalling and follow the facts wherever they may lead.”