It’s worth pausing and noting that the president is now tweeting about impeachment

President Donald Trump is tweeting a lot about the possibility of being impeached.

The president, appearing to have grown increasingly irritated with the debate around potential impeachment hearings, repeatedly tweeted over the weekend and into Monday, that “only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment.” Trump said that the activities he and his campaign engaged in did not reach that level.

A redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into his campaign’s conduct was made public last week; the report did not establish a conspiracy between Trump’s camp and the Russian government in the 2016 election, and chose not to reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice. But the report outlined a long series of concerning evidence to that effect.

Trump’s response, outside of claiming complete and total innocence, has been to claim the entire investigation was illegal and unconstitutional, despite multiple court rulings in Mueller’s favor. Over the weekend, Trump was tweeting about impeachment as well.

Democrats in Congress are now in a debate over how to proceed with the report; so far they have made clear their intent to hear testimonies from Attorney General William Barr, who repeatedly claimed “no collusion” last week, and Mueller, as well as get the unredacted version of the report.

Whether this further investigation will lead to official impeachment hearings has yet to be determined. It’s clear that Republicans, even those most critical of Trump, have no interest in that. Instead, many Republicans have been working to protect Trump from any additional inquiries.

All that said, it’s worth noting that we are at a point in history at which the president of the United States, after the release of an incredibly damning investigatory report into the conduct of his presidential campaign and administration, is tweeting about the possibility of being impeached from office.

It’s also worth pointing out that this is a clear shift from the weeks leading up to the redacted Mueller report’s release, Trump’s message was that the Mueller report exonerated him.

“No collusion,” he has said, preempting reporters’ questions.

Now, with the report publicly available, he’s trying to ward off any talk about his impeachment.