House Judiciary Committee chairman on impeachment: “All options are on the table”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said that “all options were on the table” with regards to beginning impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump, in response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s first public statement on the Russia investigation Wednesday afternoon.

“With respect to impeachment, all options are on the table and nothing should be ruled out,” Nadler said.

Mueller said Wednesday that his report had not exonerated President Trump. “If we had confidence that the president did not clearly commit a crime, we would have said so,” he said. And he explained that his office never considered indicting him for obstruction of justice because a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.

“The special counsel did not exonerate the president of the United States of obstruction of justice,” Nadler said in his news conference. “The constitution points to Congress to take action to hold the president accountable for his misconduct. It falls to Congress to respond to the crimes, lies, and other wrongdoing of President Trump.”

Mueller said Wednesday that the Constitution requires a process other than any offered by the criminal justice system to find a president guilty of a crime. That remark several lawmakers took as a cue for Congress to step in — including Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, both of whom are running for president, and Rep. Justin Amash, the only Republican openly calling for Mr. Trump’s impeachment.

Although the special counsel did not reach a conclusion on whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice in his report, the Mueller report did examine 10 “discrete acts” in which he may have done so. Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined that Mr. Trump did not obstruct justice.

Mueller also said that he would not be speaking publicly again about the report.

“I hope and expect that this will be the only time I will speak to you about this matter,” Mueller told reporters. He also said that while there were conversations about his testifying before Congress, “the report is my testimony.”

“I would not provide information beyond that which is already public,” Mueller said.

Nadler has been highly critical of the president and Barr’s handling of the report, but has stopped short of calling for impeachment. In a statement released after Mueller’s statement, Nadler declined to say whether he would subpoena Mueller.

“Although Department of Justice policy prevented the Special Counsel from bringing criminal charges against the President, the Special Counsel has clearly demonstrated that President Trump is lying about the Special Counsel’s findings, lying about the testimony of key witnesses in the Special Counsel’s report, and is lying in saying that the Special Counsel found no obstruction and no collusion,” Nadler said, adding that it “falls to Congress to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump.”