Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said late Monday that an indictment of President Trump by special counsel Robert Mueller could have eventually “led to civil war.”
“If [Trump] had been indicted for conspiring with Russia to interfere with and affect the outcome of our elections, it would have precipitated a terribly divisive crisis that could have even led to civil war,” Gabbard said in a statement posted on Twitter.
{mosads}Gabbard also said that while she “strongly supported” Mueller being allowed to complete the probe, “[n]ow that Mueller has found no collusion took place, we need to set aside our partisan interests and recognize that finding the president of the United States not guilty of conspiring with a foreign power to interfere with our elections is a good thing for America.”
Gabbard also called on Congress to safeguard against further election interference by supporting the Securing America’s Elections Act, a bill she sponsored that would allow every state to use paper ballots, “making it impossible for Russia or anyone else to change our election results.”
After the release Sunday of Attorney General William Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings, Gabbard joined other Democratic candidates in calling for the release of Mueller’s full report.
Barr told Congress Mueller’s team did not find that there was collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, but could not “exonerate” on obstruction of justice.