Elizabeth Warren calls for Trump’s impeachment following Mueller report – live
In a statement, the senator and 2020 presidential candidate said initiating impeachment proceedings is the ‘constitutional duty’ of politicians
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Elizabeth Warren: ‘The House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States.’
Sam Levin (now) and Jamiles Lartey (earlier)
Fri 19 Apr 2019 18.46 EDT First published on Fri 19 Apr 2019 09.29 EDT
Key events
6.40pm
The White House is continuing its attacks on the press following intense criticisms of spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, who admitted to lying to reporters in the special counsel report released this week.
Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesperson, sent this statement to the New York Times:
Trump is also continuing to tweet direct attacks on the New York Times and Washington Post.
More on Sanders’ comments here:
Sarah Sanders reiterates Comey claims despite admitting to lying
In non-Mueller news, the AP has published a report saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is now restricting lawyers’ access to migrants in a key Texas detention center:
From the AP:
The legal services group RAICES goes to Karnes daily to consult with detained immigrants about their asylum cases. The group says subtle policy changes at the facility have reduced legal access for detained women seeking asylum.
Since Monday, authorities at Karnes have prevented attorneys and volunteers from meeting with many large groups of migrants at once, which prevents them from quickly consulting with more people, according to Andrea Meza, RAICES’ director of family detention services.
Karnes staff also stopped sending RAICES the names of detainees who put their names on sign-up sheets outside the visitation room, Meza said…
If the changes remain in place, fewer people will be able to consult with a lawyer before asylum interviews, Meza said, and it will be harder for the group to follow up with potential asylum seekers.
Nancy Pelosi is not shifting her position on the question of impeaching Trump:
With Elizabeth Warren calling for impeachment proceedings, here’s a quick roundup of some of the 2020 candidates’ recent remarks on the question of impeachment, via NBC News:
Pete Buttigieg, South Bend mayor, told NBC that he believes there’s “evidence that this president deserves to be impeached”, but since he is not in Congress, he would leave it to the House representatives to make that decision.
Senator Kamala Harris did not rule it out in an MSNBC interview on Thursday, saying:
I think that there is definitely a conversation to be had on that subject, but first I want to hear from Bob Mueller and really understand what exactly is the evidence that supports the summary that we have been given today.”
Beto O’Rourke has said he believes voters are more interested in policy: “I don’t know that impeachment and those proceedings in the House and potential trial in the Senate is going to answer those questions for people.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar recently said: “Our job is to be jury, so I’ve been really careful talking about if an impeachment is brought before us.”
Julian Castro said he would support impeachment proceedings:
Bernie Sanders reportedly ignored reporters’ questions about impeachment earlier.
Representative Eric Swalwell told MSNBC that impeachment is “a conversation we have to have as far as holding this president accountable”.
Justice department says subpoena of Mueller report “unnecessary”
Hello - Sam Levin here, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day.
The justice department has responded to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler’s subpoena for the full Mueller report, calling it “unnecessary” and “premature”:
After a day of golf, Trump has finally returned to Twitter to finish his thoughts - nine hours later. We know you’ve been on pins and needles so here you go.
In case you missed the beginning:
With that I leave you in the very capable hands of my colleague Sam Levin
Elijah Cummings gives Jake Tapper a very politician-y answer to the impeachment question.
We should expect that every Democrat of any influence or statue will be forced to weigh in on the question over the next few days, if they haven’t already.
For those keeping score at home, some already on the record, in no particular order. (Those in bold are running for president):
Yes: Representative Maxine Waters, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Rashida Tlaib, Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro.
No (for now): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Angus King (Independent who caucuses with Democrats)
An analysis from Politico predicts that Trump figures to rage against “scapegoats” in coming days, something we may have seen a taste of in a yet-unfished thread of angry tweets.
Close White House advisers said they expect Trump’s hottest rage in the coming days will be directed at former White House counsel Don McGahn, a source of some of the report’s most embarrassing findings about the president. Trump angrily tweeted on Thursday that the report contained “total bullshit” from people trying to make themselves look good and harm the president.”
-Politico
In his tweets, Trump also made an angry reference to the inclusion of notes taken by staffers in the Mueller report. The Politico story adds a bit of background:
In one instance cited in the redacted report, which was released Thursday, the president apparently criticized McGahn for telling Mueller’s investigators that Trump sought to have Mueller removed.
“Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes,” Trump is quoted as saying, to which McGahn responded that a “real lawyer” does.
Trump countered that he’d had “a lot of great lawyers” like Roy Cohn, who he argued “did not take notes.”
A person close to the president said Trump was particularly annoyed by notes taken by Jeff Sessions’ then-chief of staff, Jody Hunt. Hunt captured Trump’s reaction to learning about the special counsel investigation in vivid detail.
“Oh my God,” the president told Sessions, according to Hunt’s notes. “This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
Since the report was released Thursday morning, several of Trump’s current aides have pushed back about how their comments were portrayed, appearing to engage in public damage control – even though their interviews with special investigators were under oath.
CNN’s Manu Raju is reporting that “Democratic leaders are rejecting a proposal from the Justice Department to allow the House and Senate leaders and the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to read a less-redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.”
It’s been reported that Barr planned to allow “select lawmakers” to review a less-redacted version of Mueller’s repoort in a “secure area” next week.
Elizabeth Warren: Impeach Trump
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.
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.”
-Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.
The Trump 2020 campaign says it has raised more than $1m since the Mueller report was released, according to The Hill.
“Sorry Trump haters. The biggest waste of money witch hunt in history is finally over,” read a text sent to campaign supporters. “The attacks and lies will keep coming heading into 2020. That’s why we need to fight back bigger and stronger than ever before.”
The campaign reached the goal it set in a message to supporters Thursday afternoon.
The campaign is also running Facebook advertisements attempting to fundraise off the report, with more than 50 active since Thursday according to the Facebook ad library.
Romney on WH conduct detailed in Mueller report: sickened and appalled
Utah Senator Mitt Romney offered a scathing reaction to the Muller report, describing himself as “sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President.”
He continued:
Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders.”
The 2012 Republican nominee for president has been among Trump’s most vociferous critics from within his own party, and by far the most prominent Republican to win an election as a Trump critic.
Trump approval hits 2019 low on heels of Mueller report
The number of Americans who approve of President Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll.
The poll, conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning is the first post-Mueller release of the president’s approval.
According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a summary of the report in March.
Federal authorities announced that a Florida man called three Democrats at their Washington, D.C. offices April 16 and left voicemail messages threatening murder.
The lawmakers targeted included California Congressman Eric Swalwell, Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
“You’re gonna die. Don’t wanna do that shit, boy. You’ll be [on] your deathbed, motherfucker, along with the rest of you Democrats. So if you want death, keep that shit up, motherfucker,” the man, 49-year-old John Kless allegedly said in his message to Swalwell. He has been charged with making threatening communications
As details emerge …
… from the Mueller report, The Guardian will continue to investigate, report and expose the truth to make sure we understand the complete story. At this critical moment in American history, we’ll use the strength of independent journalism to challenge false narratives, sort facts from lies and create transparency to hold the powerful accountable.
Latest from the White House: “Today the President played golf with Rush Limbaugh and a couple friends.”
…In case you were wondering.
US President Donald Trump walks as he plays a round of golf on the Ailsa course at Trump Turnberry,
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TheHill
OPINION | JUDICIARY
April 19, 2019 - 11:15 AM EDT
The Constitution will have the final word on President Trump
BY ELIZABETH WYDRA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
Even after the damning information revealed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report yesterday, President Trump behaves as if he’s in the clear, free from accountability. Memo to the President: the U.S. Constitution has something to say about that.
Anyone who thinks the process currently seems tilted in Trump’s favor would have good reason. Last month, of course, Attorney General William Barr released an incredibly selective"summary" of Mueller’s findings, allowing President Trump and the mouthpieces who serve him to trumpet the lie that Mueller exonerated him. Then yesterday, Barr put on a farcical press conference before he released the redacted Mueller Report, attempting to foam the runway for the news about to crash on Donald Trump’s presidency. Naturally, that charade in front of reporters helped Trump claim victory all over again.
Make no mistake: Any confidence that Barr could be forthright on the tough rule of law questions swirling around his boss is now gone. The U.S. Attorney General is supposed to be the people’s lawyer, impartially upholding the rule of law on behalf of all Americans. Sadly, as we saw yesterday, Barr is acting more like President Trump’s personal attorney and public relations adviser.
Barr and Trump may believe, with these political parlor tricks, that they will avoid the reckoning otherwise compelled by Mueller’s report. The flip side of that coin is that for the rest of us, sometimes we find it difficult to believe that the whole truth will come out, and that power will meet accountability. The seeds of that accountability, however, are planted in the Constitution. Article I and Article III provide our institutions significant power to check and balance any lawlessness of the chief executive of Article II.
Article I provides for creation of that chamber of Congress closest to the people, the House of Representatives. From there, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), is empowered to take significant steps toward holding President Trump accountable to the rule of law and fulfill the critical oversight role of Congress. To get all the information Congress needs, Nadler has rightly issued a subpoena to the Department of Justice for the full and unredacted Mueller report, as well as underlying materials reviewed by the Mueller grand jury.
If DOJ refuses to comply, Nadler can turn to Article III, the federal courts, and sue the Trump Administration to enforce that subpoena. In addition, Nadler could also ask the judge supervising the grand jury to release certain grand jury materials.
Additionally, we must not ignore the grand jury itself. Twenty-three regular citizens, performing a solemn duty older than the nation itself, is supervised by the judge who empaneled them two years ago. Together, they have significant power conferred upon them by America’s founders, through the text and history of the U.S. Constitution, to provide their own path to reckoning. Significantly, if these jurors felt that what they see in the public square doesn’t represent their views of the case, they could request the judge to guide an appropriate release of a report of their own, either to Congress or even the public. Recall that during the Watergate investigation, Judge John Sirica fielded just such a request from the grand jury he supervised, and released to Congress materials regarding President Nixon.
Of course, the product of further congressional investigation and even grand jury involvement could be enough information - as if there isn’t enough already - to confront President Trump with the same prospect that confronted Nixon, found in Article II itself: Threat of impeachment and removal from office. The ultimate constitutional sanction, this is reserved for government officials found to have committed “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” - a possibility that looms nearer today than it did before the Mueller Report was finally released.
President Trump, abetted in no small measure by an Attorney General acting increasingly as his personal lawyer, can shout his false vindication from the roof of the White House if he wants to. The Constitution, given force by We the People, will have the final word.
Elizabeth Wydra, a former clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, is president of Constitutional Accountability Center, a public interest law firm and think tank dedicated to promoting the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history. Follow her on Twitter @ElizabethWydra.
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