Senator Kamala Harris joins increasing Trump impeachment calls

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris has said that the US Congress should take steps toward impeaching President Donald Trump in the wake of the publication of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, saying she believes that Mueller's report revealed evidence of obstruction of justice.

"I think we have very good reason to believe that there is an investigation that has been conducted which has produced evidence that tells us that this President and his administration engaged in obstruction of justice," Harris said at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire on Monday. "I believe Congress should take the steps towards impeachment."

"I believe that we need to get rid of this President. That's why I'm running to become president of the United States. That is part of the premise, obviously, of my plan,” she added.

Trump meanwhile said on Monday that he was not worried about impeachment, saying that “only high crimes” can lead to impeachment.

Trump said his actions did not meet the impeachment threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” laid out in the Constitution.

“Only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment," Trump tweeted. "There were no crimes by me (No Collusion, No Obstruction), so you can’t impeach. It was the Democrats that committed the crimes, not your Republican President! Tables are finally turning on the Witch Hunt!”

A number of Democrats have called for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump, despite warnings some that the effort is likely to be unsuccessful and could divide the country.

Mueller’s two-year investigation failed determine that the Trump campaign collude with Russia during the 2016 election, but it detailed 10 cases of potential obstruction of justice but ultimately did not charge Trump with a crime.

Ex-Trump transition official calls for impeachment

J.W. Verret, a George Mason University law professor who briefly worked on President Trump's transition team, has also called for Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Verret first sought impeachment against Trump last week, arguing that there was "enough" in Mueller's report to justify it.

On Tuesday, Verret expanded upon his argument, saying that the Mueller report served as a "tipping point" for him.

Verret wrote in a column for The Atlantic  that he was one of the first individuals to join Trump's after interviewing for the job in August 2016.

"In the face of a Department of Justice policy that prohibited him from indicting a sitting president, Mueller drafted what any reasonable reader would see as a referral to Congress to commence impeachment hearings," he wrote, adding that Trump's "elaborate pattern of obstruction may have successfully impeded the Mueller investigation from uncovering a conspiracy to commit more serious crimes."

"Republicans who stand up to Trump today may face some friendly fire," continued Verret, who has worked on every Republican presidential transition team of the last decade.

"Today’s Republican electorate seems spellbound by the sound bites of Twitter and cable news, for which Trump is a born wizard,” he wrote.

"Yet, in time, we can help rebuild the Republican Party, enabling it to rise from the ashes of the post-Trump apocalypse into a party with renewed commitment to principles of liberty, opportunity, and the rule of law."

Trump should be arrested and put in jail: Warren

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading contender in the 2020 field, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro have called for impeachment proceedings against Trump. Congressional Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar have also called for Trump’s ousting.

Warren said on Monday that if anyone else did what Trump did, according to the Mueller report, "they would be arrested and put in jail."

"He serves the whole thing up to the United States Congress and says in effect, if there's going to be any accountability, that accountability has to come from the Congress," Warren said of Mueller. "And the tool that we are given for that accountability is the impeachment process. This is not about politics; this is about principle."

“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,” Warren said on Twitter on Friday.

Ocasio-Cortez and Omar believe the findings detailed in Mueller’s report contradict Trump’s claims that he has been “totally exonerated” from any criminal wrongdoing.

Ocasio-Cortez has vowed to support impeachment proceedings launched by fellow Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.

Meanwhile, Omar has said Congress has a “constitutional responsibility” to act.

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