Robert Mueller's report on the investigation into the 2016 election landed on Thursday, following months of anticipation. With dozens of indictments and several plea deals already public, many of the findings, such as extensive Russian interference in the election and significant criminality within the Trump campaign team, were well known. And yet the release of the report, a hefty 448-page document riddled with redactions, marks a significant turning point in the Trump presidency, and in the nation more broadly: the moment when the Democratic House needs to get serious about impeachment.

Nancy Pelosi: "He's just not worth it." Credit:AP

No sooner had the Mueller report landed than top Democrats began backing away from impeachment. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the second-highest ranking Democrat, brushed off the idea, saying that "going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point". His words echoed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comment last month, when she said of impeaching Trump, "He's just not worth it."

But as the Mueller report makes clear, President Trump spent much of the past two years working to obstruct the investigation into wrongdoing by his campaign and, later, by his administration. Mueller believed he did not have the authority, as special counsel, to pursue a case against the President. He did, however, make quite clear in his report that Congress did.

Mueller writes in his report that, had he been able after the investigation to exonerate the President, he would. But the facts stood in the way of that exoneration. "The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred," he explains in careful language. Despite that, he believed an investigation could not go forward, lest it interfere with the “constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct" – in other words, impeachment.