Cautioning against rushing to impeachment, Hillary Clinton suggests a different way to respond to Mueller report

Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's redacted report has been released, some people are demanding President Trump's impeachment while others say there's no need to act, but there is a middle ground, Hillary Clinton writes in an op-ed published Wednesday night by The Washington Post.

The Mueller report's "definitive conclusion" is simple, Clinton said: The 2016 presidential election "was corrupted, our democracy assaulted, our sovereignty and security violated." History has shown a way forward from here, she said, and that involves Congress holding "substantive hearings" and forming an independent and bipartisan commission to "help protect our elections."



Clinton admits that the matter is "personal for me, and some might say I'm not the right messenger," but while serving as a senator and secretary of state, she said, she saw the ascent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and "knows firsthand that he seeks to weaken our country." Congress must take the Mueller report and use it "as a road map," she writes. "It's up to members of both parties to see where that road map leads — to the eventual filing of articles of impeachment, or not."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Along with hearings that "build on the Mueller report and fill in its gaps, not jump straight to an up-or-down vote on impeachment," Clinton argues, a commission like the one created after the 9/11 attacks is necessary because "the president of the United States has proved himself unwilling to defend our nation from a clear and present danger."

She also has a message for House Democrats, reminding them that during Watergate, Congress was able to pass the Endangered Species Act, Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, and War Powers Act. "Stay focused on the sensible agenda that voters demanded in the midterms, from protecting health care to investing in infrastructure," Clinton advised, as it's "not only possible to move forward on multiple fronts at the same time, it's essential." Read the entire op-ed at The Washington Post.