Mueller report ignites furor
Redacted document reveals new details on Manafort, Hicks
WASHINGTON — While President Donald Trump and his team exulted in release of the Mueller report, Connecticut Democratic lawmakers were culling through its 400-plus pages for unflattering details on its twin conclusions: insufficient evidence of Trump 2016 campaign coordination with Russia, and neither confirmation nor exoneration on whether Trump obstructed justice.
“What’s demonstrated in powerful and compelling detail in this report is nothing less than a national scandal,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal at a news conference in Hartford. “This report is far from the end of the inquiry that this country needs and deserves. It is the beginning of another chapter.”
Release of the report, with close to 160 pages partly or fully blacked out, capped a tumultuous nearly two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller on whether Trump and his campaign staff conspired with Russian intelligence to disseminate hacked emails aimed at denigrating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton — and thereby elevating Trump.
The report contained greater detail on the role of New Britain-born Paul Manafort in efforts to win Trump agreement to follow a pro-Russia “peace plan” in Ukraine, and the worry of Trump communications adviser Hope Hicks, of Greenwich, that emails on the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians were “really bad” and the result of news reports breaking on them would be “massive.”
While the Mueller report came to no conclusion on whether Trump was liable for prosecution on obstruction, Attorney General William Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded “the president was not.”
In the second of two volumes, the report delves into new details about Trump’s early efforts to derail Mueller soon after then Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself and Rosenstein appointed him to take over the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe in May 2017.
Trump had just fired FBI Director James Comey, later admitting in a television interview that “this Russia thing” was among the deciding factors.
Trump wanted to fire Sessions immediately after Sessions recused himself, clearing the way for appointment of Mueller. And after Mueller’s appointment, the report states, Trump directed his legal counsel, Donald McGahn, to have Mueller fired because of a conflict of interest for which Mueller had already been cleared by the Justice Department.
McGahn agonized over the decision but ultimately decided not to follow through because it would be tantamount to the Watergate-era “Saturday Night Massacre” — in which President Richard Nixon fired his two top Justice Department officials before he found one who would fire special counsel Archibald Cox.
“I was startled by the gangster-like behavior of Trump,” said Rep. Jim Himes, a member of the House intelligence committee. “Sections of it read like ‘The Godfather.’”
Sen. Chris Murphy said in an interview that notwithstanding Mueller’s conclusions, “what we know is the Trump campaign had numerous opportunities to alert law enforcement of the interest in manipulating our election by people close to the Russian government. And they didn’t.”
The Mueller report stated that while the investigation could not conclude Trump committed the crime of obstruction, “it also does not exonerate him.” It also concluded that while Trump campaign officials welcomed Russian efforts to denigrate Clinton through release of hacked emails, “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the government Russia in its election interference activities.”
Murphy stopped well short of calling for impeachment proceedings, but pointed out that one of the key facts that might have led to Nixon’s impeachment (had he not resigned first in 1974) was his effort to get the CIA to block the Watergate investigation on national security grounds.
Himes said there was little point in pursuing impeachment because while the Democratic-controlled House might vote to impeach, the Republicancontrolled Senate would never convict Trump.
“I’m a believer there is nothing in the report, sleazy as it is, that would cause the Senate to turn on Trump,” he said.
Murphy said he needed to take time to read the report, but that he believed Barr was acting less like the nation’s top law enforcement officer and more like Trump’s personal lawyer.
In a news briefing early Thursday before release of the report, Barr used the phrase “no collusion” four times in describing Mueller’s conclusion that neither Trump nor his campaign conspired with Russian intelligence to win the election. “No collusion” was Trump’s frequent mantra over the course of the Mueller investigation.
Barr told reporters he would have no objection to Mueller testifying before Congress.
Barr last month issued a four-page summary of the Mueller report, which Blumenthal, Murphy and other Connecticut lawmakers charged was insufficient. They said that in addition to the full report, Congress should be allowed to see the materials Mueller blanked out because of grand-jury secrecy and unnamed ongoing investigations, a presumed reference to the prosecution of Trump adviser and longtime GOP operative Roger Stone.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, also criticized Barr. “Despite Attorney General Barr’s political spin, the Mueller report details multiple instances in which President Trump attempted to obstruct justice and end the Special Counsel’s investigation,” she said in a statement.
At the White House, Trump rejoiced over the report, telling reporters that he was having a “good day.” He also tweeted a photo declaring "Game Over" in a typeface mimicking the "Game of Thrones" logo.
The section of the report on Hicks has to do with emails preceding the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., Manafort and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and a group of Russians, one of whom was described as able to provide derogatory information on Clinton “as part of Russia and its government’s support to Mr. Trump.”
Donald Jr.’s response: “If it’s what you say, I love it.”
Hicks is the former Greenwich High School lacrosse-team co-captain who pursued a modeling career and wound up as a close confidante of Trump during his campaign and later at the White House. The report shows her deep angst over the impending email revelations, describing them as “really bad.”
Hicks then played an important role in drafting a statement from Donald Jr., saying the meeting was “primarily” about Russian adoption. Ultimately Donald Jr. himself released the emails, after the New York Times ran a story about the meeting.