(Radio Iowa) — A fifth and final book club meeting is scheduled in Red Oak today (Monday) — for discussion of a 448-page publication that’s at the center of the country’s political debate. Barb Nelson, a Democrat from Red Oak, is the organizer of club — which has been reading The Mueller Report — the special counsel’s report about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“At every meeting we say: ‘We cannot keep it here, go share with somebody what you’re doing,'” Nelson says. “Go share that you are reading this and ask them: ‘Have you read it?'” Sarah Smith of Red Oak says every week new people have joined the group — and a few have been Republicans.

“We really had quite a robust discussion last week because we had some attendees who were very absolute about what they believed,” Smith says, “and so it was more challenging to have a good, give-and-take conversation because we were open to listening to them, but we also wanted them to hear us.” Jan Norris of Red Oak says it makes her uncomfortable when Democrats running for president say they’re not hearing about impeachment from voters.

“We care deeply about this issue,” Norris says. “If this president isn’t called into check, we have no guardrails on our democracy.” Nelson says the group may also get together on July 17th to watch Mueller testify before congress. “Even if all he’s going to do is read passages from the report, it could be a game-changer when it comes to waking people up and getting them to also take this report seriously,” Nelson says.

Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann says he’s not surprised Democrats are reading The Mueller Report. Kaufmann says Republicans read the Starr Report about Bill Clinton in 1998 when it was released in paperback. “I would say it was about half and half of why they were reading it,” Kaufmann says. “Part of a democracy is being informed. The other part, I mean, let’s face it — sex sells and there was a lot of that in terms of the investigative procedures and conclusions and such.”

Kaufmann was teaching college students at the time and he felt it was inappropriate to make the Starr Report a reading assignment given some of the salacious subject matter. The U.S. House passed articles of impeachment against Clinton in 1998, but the U.S. Senate did not convict him of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”