Mueller reignites impeachment debate
Special counsel does not exonerate Trump; state delegation says Congress must continue investigation
WASHINGTON — Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday “underlined in bright red Magic Marker and circled with big exclamation points” a conclusion that President Donald Trump would have been charged with obstruction if it hadn’t been for the longstanding Justice Department policy against indictments of sitting presidents.
Mueller “highlighted and circled the parts of his report he wants the public to see and hear,” Blumenthal said.
But the veteran prosecutor and former FBI director preferred punting the ultimate question of Trump’s culpability to Congress — although he insisted his office’s 448-page investigative report “is my testimony” and it would not be “appropriate” for him to answer questions on Capitol Hill.
Mueller told reporters at the Justice Department that with release of the report, he is closing the special counsel’s office, resigning from the Justice Department and returning to private life. He spoke for about nine minutes, taking no questions.
His words amplified the debate over impeachment, with House Democrats such as Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Jahana Hayes saying they justify a more robust congressional investigation while Trump tweeted “The case is closed! Thank you.”
“The special counsel stated that their decision not to indict was based directly on Justice Department policies that a sitting president cannot be indicted,” said DeLauro, the all-Democratic delegation’s senior House member. “This is all the more reason Congress should continue its investigative work on these topics — no one is above the law.”
Mueller was a virtual recluse in two years as special counsel, leaving reporters to follow his investigative trail which, among other things, involved the
prosecution and sentencing of New Britain’s Paul Manafort — Trump’s former campaign manager — on charges of bank fraud, tax evasion and failing to register as a foreign agent regarding his consulting work for a political party in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Mueller went over much of the terrain covered in the report, a redacted version of which was released last month. Russia mounted a major online effort to subvert the U.S. election, but there was “insufficient evidence” to charge anyone in connection with the investigation’s main focus: Whether Trump 2016 campaign officials coordinated and conspired with Russian intelligence to boost Trump’s election chances through release of hacked emails involving his Democratic opponent, former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In its second volume, the report detailed about a dozen instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump, including his firing of FBI Director James Comey and ordering (unsuccessfully) his White House legal counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.
On Wednesday, Mueller was even more emphatic on Trump’s involvement in obstruction.
“If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller said in a reformulation of words used in the report.
In the report, Mueller made reference to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opinion (dating to the 1990s) that a president cannot be indicted while in office.
On Wednesday, Mueller said any such indictment would be “unconstitutional.” But he appeared much more willing to connect his office’s no-indict decision to the OLC opinion — leaving open the suggestion that but for the policy, Trump would have been indicted.
“The special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice and, by regulation, it was bound by that department policy,” Mueller said. “Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.
Blumenthal seized on Mueller’s latest iteration. “Donald Trump would be in handcuffs, criminally indicted, but for his being president of the United States,” he said.
And Sen. Chris Murphy said Mueller had “made his most definitive statement on the potential illegal conduct of ” Trump.
Mueller on Wednesday said the “Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing” — which Democrats took as a green light of sorts to spur along a House Judiciary Committee investigation that Trump and the White House have so far resisted.
Connecticut Democrats said that despite demurrals about testifying, Mueller should be brought to Capitol Hill to explain his reasoning further.
“The American people deserved to hear Robert Mueller’s unvarnished account of his investigation,” Hayes said. “Congress now has a responsibility to continue its work to understand what happened and prevent future meddling in our elections by a hostile foreign power.”
Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, insisted that Mueller needs to testify even if he stays within the four corners of the report.
“He absolutely has to testify because most Americans will never read the report and many will not see or hear his nine-minute statement, Blumenthal said. “Most Americans won’t read the book, but they’ll see the movie. And Robert Mueller is the movie.”