Tim Ryan calls for impeachment proceedings against Trump

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) on Sunday called for impeachment proceedings to be initiated against President Trump.

“We oversee Article II of the Constitution,” the 2020 White House hopeful said during a CNN town hall.

“And when you think that the president has committed crimes — and I’ve read the Mueller report and think he obstructed [justice] on multiple occasions — we have a responsibility,” he added.

{mosads}Ryan had previously deferred to the House Judiciary Committee on the issue of impeachment.

He cited special counsel Robert Mueller’s press conference earlier this week, saying he wanted to know whether Trump’s status as president was the only reason why Mueller chose not to indict.

“I wanted to know that answer,” Ryan said, “and the answer I got a couple days ago was yes, he would have.”

Mueller said on Wednesday that “if we had had confidence the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”

Mueller’s report, released last month, found insufficient evidence to charge Trump with conspiring with Moscow to interfere in the 2016 elections, but declined to make a prosecutorial decision about whether the president obstructed subsequent investigations into the interference, instead outlining 10 “episodes” of behavior that were possibly obstructive.

Many Democrats have called for impeachment in the wake of the report, but party leadership has maintained that Democrats should stay the course of investigating the White House and that any impeachment attempt would be quashed in the GOP-controlled Senate.