Democratic candidates: Mueller remarks were an impeachment referral — so impeach

“Combined with the fact that Robert Mueller clearly expects Congress to exercise its constitutional authority and take steps that he could not, it’s time for Republicans and Democrats to begin impeachment hearings and follow the facts wherever they may lead,” Gillibrand said in a statement.

“Robert Mueller’s statement makes it clear: Congress has a legal and moral obligation to begin impeachment proceedings immediately,” Booker wrote in a tweet.

Mueller reiterated in his public statement that while his report did not find that Trump tried to obstruct the investigation, it did not absolve him of obstruction.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime,” Mueller said.

Other candidates on Wednesday renewed their calls for impeachment or made them more explicit.

“There must be consequences, accountability, and justice. The only way to ensure that is to begin impeachment proceedings,” former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke said in a tweet.

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg told MSNBC that Mueller’s message was essentially, “Over to you, Congress,” because Department of Justice guidelines prevent Mueller from recommending charging a sitting president with a crime.

“This is as close to an impeachment referral as you can get under the circumstances,” Buttigieg said. “If we’re ever going to have any kind of due process, any kind of systemic assessment of whether there will be accountability for the president, the DOJ can’t deliver. Congress will have to do it.”

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., told reporters in South Carolina that she believed Mueller would have returned an indictment against Trump had the Justice Department not had an internal guidance memo suggesting it could not.

“What is clear is that I think it’s a fair inference from what we heard in that press conference that Bob Mueller was essentially referring impeachment to the United States Congress,” she said. Harris added that as president, she would “put in place a procedure of questioning whether that memo is actually necessary and applicable when we have situations such as this. It’s an advisory memo. It’s not the law.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told MSNBC he thought Mueller would still testify before Congress. Swalwell, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the panel responsible for bringing impeachment proceedings, said the special counsel’s statement “will amplify” calls for Trump’s forcible removal from the White House.

“No president should be immunized in the way this president has been immunized because he would be indicted right now, is what the special counsel told us,” Swalwell said, referring to the Justice Department memo.

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro told MSNBC that Mueller “made it even more clear that he is laying it at the lap of Congress to go forward.”

Castro argued that declining to inch closer toward impeachment would give Trump “a clean bill of health,” and allow the president to contend that Democrats did not think there was enough evidence to oust him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., highlighted how she was the first major presidential contender to call on the House to begin impeachment proceedings following the release of the Mueller report.

“When the Mueller report came out on April 18th, I read it. The next day, I told @maddow this is a point of principle,” Warren tweeted.