SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A Democratic contender for U.S. Senate in New Mexico staged a live-broadcast reading on social media Monday of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, highlighting her support for immediate impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
In a social media feed from her home kitchen table, New Mexico Secretary of State and Senate candidate State Maggie Toulouse Oliver read from a bound paperback version of the report, in anticipation of Mueller's scheduled testimony this week before Congress.
Rival Senate candidate and Congressman Ben Ray Luján has stood by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in resisting attempts to begin impeachment before additional evidence is collected. Three Democrats are jockeying for the Senate nomination in 2020 as Sen. Tom Udall retires.
Campaign spokeswoman Heather Brewer said Toulouse Oliver would spend about seven hours in all on Monday and Tuesday reading aloud the second of two volumes from the report that focuses on obstruction of justice.
Mueller is scheduled to testify Wednesday in back-to-back House committee hearings. His report did not find sufficient evidence to establish charges of criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to swing the election, but it said Trump could not be cleared of trying to obstruct the investigation.
On Monday, Toulouse Oliver injected occasional comments as she read from a bound paperback copy.
"This is not the final word on the matter," she said. "They are specifically saying that this report cannot exonerate the president."
Mueller believed Trump couldn't be indicted in part because of a Justice Department opinion against prosecuting a sitting president.
Mueller has said he doesn't intend to speak beyond the findings of the report at the congressional hearings.