Trump irate over his staff ’s testimony
Democrats subpoena the full Mueller report amid calls for impeachment
WASHINGTON — In a dramatic departure from the upbeat public face the White House had put on it just 24 hours earlier, President Donald Trump lashed out Friday at current and former aides who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, rejecting the deeply unflattering picture they painted of him and his administration.
Meanwhile, Democrats intensified their investigation of the president as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena Friday for Mueller’s full report although leaders stopped short of demands by the party’s liberal wing for impeachment proceedings.
In a series of angry tweets from Palm Beach, Trump laced into those who, under oath, had shared with Mueller their accounts of how Trump tried nu
merous times to squash or influence the investigation and portrayed the White House as infected by a culture of lies, deceit and deception.
“Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue,” Trump wrote, adding that some were “total bull---- & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad).”
On Thursday, the president had celebrated the findings in the redacted report as full exoneration and his counselor Kellyanne Conway called it “the best day” for Trump’s team since his election.
While the president, according to people close to him, did feel vindicated by the report, he also felt betrayed by those who had painted him in an unflattering light — even though they were speaking under oath and had been directed by the White House to cooperate with Mueller’s team.
The reaction was not entirely surprising and had been something staffers feared in the days ahead of the report’s release as they wondered how Mueller might portray their testimony and whether the report might damage their relationships with Trump.
While Mueller found no criminal evidence that Trump or his campaign aides colluded in Russian election meddling and did not recommend obstruction charges against the president, the 448-page report released Thursday nonetheless paints a damaging picture of the president, describing numerous cases where he discouraged witnesses from cooperating with prosecutors and prodded aides to mislead the public on his behalf to hamper the Russia probe he feared would cripple his presidency. The accounts prompted Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has sometimes clashed with Trump, to release a statement saying he was “sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President.”
“Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders,” he said.
If Mueller’s findings caused dismay in at least one Republican, they have also put Democratic leaders under mounting pressure from the party’s rising stars, deep-pocketed donors and even a presidential contender to seize the moment as a jumpingoff point for trying to remove Trump from office.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted on a methodical, step-by-step approach to the House’s oversight of the Trump administration, and she refuses to consider impeachment without public support, including from Republicans, which seems unlikely.
Speaking Friday in Belfast as she wrapped up a congressional visit to Ireland, Pelosi declined to signal action beyond Congress’ role as a check and balance for the White House.
“Let me assure you that whatever the issue and challenge we face, the Congress of the United States will honor its oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States to protect our democracy,” she told reporters. “We believe that the first article — Article 1, the legislative branch — has the responsibility of oversight of our democracy, and we will exercise that.”
That approach isn’t enough for some liberals who see in Trump’s actions not just a president unfit for office but evidence of obstruction serious enough that Mueller said he could not declare Trump exonerated.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is now signed on to an impeachment resolution from fellow Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, bringing new energy to the effort.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, DMass., a presidential candidate, said Friday that the House “should initiate impeachment proceedings against the president.”
And billionaire Tom Steyer, a leading advocate of impeachment, has grown impatient with the House’s pace of investigations and wants televised hearings to focus Americans’ attention on Trump.
“Let’s get the show on the road,” Steyer said Friday. “The Mueller report very clearly outlined obstruction by the president and basically said, I can’t do anything about it, it’s up to Congress to hold the president accountable.”
Democrats, though, may see greater power in pursuing an investigative effort, leaving impeachment on the shelf as a break-glass option.
The Judiciary chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., says he expects the Justice Department to comply with the committee’s subpoena for the full report by May 1.
That’s the same day Attorney General William Barr is to testify before a Senate committee and one day before Barr is to appear before Nadler’s panel.
Nadler also has summoned Mueller to testify by May 23.
“It now falls to Congress to determine the full scope of that alleged misconduct and to decide what steps we must take going forward,” Nadler said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman, Kerri Kupac, called Nadler’s move “premature and unnecessary.”
Late Friday Democrats rejected an offer from Barr for a limited number of congressional leaders to view some of the redacted materials in a confidential setting. They said it was inadequate.