Trump claims victory after Mueller hearings

Ex-counsel clear president was not exonerated

WASHINGTON • Former special counsel Robert Mueller emphasized on Wednesday he had not exonerated Donald Trump of obstruction of justice, as the president has claimed, but his long-awaited congressional testimony did little to add momentum to any Democratic impeachment ambitions and Trump heartily declared victory.

In a day of sometimes dramatic high-stakes political theatre, the former FBI director answered questions publicly for the first time on his investigation, with Democrats and Republicans taking familiar positions at a time of deep partisan divisions in the United States.

Mueller faced a rapid-fire succession of questions and sometimes struggled with his answers or sidestepped queries in hearings that lasted seven hours from start to finish.

The marathon televised hearings apparently left Democrats who control the House of Representatives no closer to launching the impeachment process to try to remove Trump even as he seeks re-election in 2020.

Mueller, for his part, refused to discuss the “impeachment issue.”

Mueller spent 22 months investigating what he concluded was Russian interference in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” in the 2016 U.S. election to help Trump as well as the president’s actions to impede the inquiry.

Mueller defended the inquiry’s integrity under repeated attacks by Trump’s conservative Republican allies during the hearings before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

Democrats who wanted Mueller to bolster their case for impeachment or provide game-changing testimony about the president, and Republicans who wanted to show that the investigation was a politically motivated hit job on Trump engineered by his enemies, may have come away frustrated.

Mueller, a reluctant witness who appeared only after being subpoenaed, often gave terse responses like “I can’t speak to that,” “I’m not going to get into that,” and “It is beyond my purview,” or merely referred lawmakers to the text of his 448-page investigative report.

The Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chairman, Jerrold Nadler, said Mueller had endured “repeated and grossly unfair personal attacks” and that no one, including Trump, was “above the law.” The Intelligence Committee’s Democratic chairman, Adam Schiff, accused Trump’s 2016 campaign of “disloyalty to country” for inviting, encouraging and making full use of Russian election meddling.

Republican lawmakers tried to paint Mueller’s investigation as unfair to the president, with Louie Gohmert telling the decorated Vietnam War veteran and longtime federal prosecutor: “You perpetuated injustice,” and Guy Reschenthaler calling the manner in which the inquiry was conducted “un-American.”

“Welcome, everyone, to the last gasp of the Russian collusion conspiracy theory,” said Devin Nunes, the Intelligence Committee’s top Republican.

Mueller’s report, released in redacted form on April 18, did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump committed the crime of obstruction of justice with his actions aimed at undermining the inquiry, but did not exonerate him. The report also said the inquiry found insufficient evidence to establish that Trump and his campaign had engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia.

Trump has said the Mueller inquiry resulted in the president’s “complete and total exoneration.”

“Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” Nadler asked Mueller during the first hearing.

“No,” Mueller replied. Mueller testified that his inquiry was conducted in “a fair and independent manner” and that members of the special counsel’s team “were of the highest integrity.”

Mueller explicitly testified that the investigation was neither a witch hunt nor hoax.

Asked about Trump’s past comments praising WikiLeaks — the web - site that published stolen Democratic emails the inquiry found were hacked by Russians to harm Trump’s election opponent Hillary Clinton — Mueller said: “‘Problematic’ is an understatement.”

“Let me say one more thing,” Mueller said. “Over the course of my career, I have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government’s effort to interfere with our election is among the most serious.”

MUELLER, FOR HIS PART, REFUSED TO DISCUSS ... IMPEACHMENT.