During the NBC News Special Report following the release of the Mueller report on Thursday, Nightly News anchor Lester Holt lamented “both volumes of this report likely falling with a thud for a lot of Democrats right now.” Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt agreed: “It did land with a thud, Lester, that’s right.”
However, the reporter still kept hope alive for liberal lawmakers pursuing impeachment of President Trump:
So one of the big questions we had here on the Hill was whether or not Mueller was gonna say that this question about obstruction of justice was one for proceedings in Congress, and potentially impeachment proceedings. And I think there’s going to be a lot more here to work with and a lot more pressure for Democrats to continue to investigate this question of whether the President obstructed justice.
While Hunt acknowledged that “there’s not a whole lot of appetite from the Speaker of the House to move forward with such a proceeding,” she touted how “the pressure is already ramping up on the left side of the Democratic Party, on their leaders, to try and take a stronger stand” against the President, using the Mueller report.
Even when reporters admit that the Special Counsel’s investigation turned out to be a dud, they still find a way to push the case for impeachment.
Here is a transcript of the April 18 exchange:
12:22 PM ET
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LESTER HOLT: Well, both volumes of this report likely falling with a thud for a lot of Democrats right now. Let’s go to Kasie Hunt right now, on Capitol Hill, to tell us what plays out now, what happens now? We suspect a lot.
KASIE HUNT: It did land with a thud, Lester, that’s right. But I actually think there’s an important piece of this conversation that your just having right now about what Robert Mueller thought about all of these precedents and the obstruction question and how it relates to Congress.
Because just a few paragraphs above what Pete Williams was just reading, Robert Mueller talks about how the President is “not categorically and permanently immunized from obstructing justice through the use of his Article 2 powers.” And he said that the separation of powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protects proceedings and that the President is not inherently protected from a quote, unquote “corrupt” actions that are designed at protecting himself.
So one of the big questions we had here on the Hill was whether or not Mueller was gonna say that this question about obstruction of justice was one for proceedings in Congress, and potentially impeachment proceedings. And I think there’s going to be a lot more here to work with and a lot more pressure for Democrats to continue to investigate this question of whether the President obstructed justice.
Now, we know from a political perspective that there’s not a whole lot of appetite from the Speaker of the House to move forward with such a proceeding, which of course is where this would all start to unfold, as Democrats control that chamber. But considering the actions that we saw from the Attorney General today, the pressure is already ramping up on the left side of the Democratic Party, on their leaders, to try and take a stronger stand and to show that this just incredible narrative of what the President was doing in the Oval Office and instructing the people around him to do was something that they actually should take official action here in Congress to deal with, Lester.
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