Captioning performed by vitac although your report states collusion is not a specific offense and you have said this this morning, or a term of art in federal criminal law, conspiracy is in the colloquial context are collusion and conspiracy essentially synonymous terms . You are going to have to rethat for me. Collusion is not a specific offense or a term of art in the federal criminal law, conspiracy is. Yes. In the colloquial context no public context collusion and conspiracy are essentially synonymous terms, correct . No. If not on page 180 of volume 1 of your report you wrote in as defined in legal dictionaries collusion is largely synonymous with conspiracy 18 usc you said at your may 29 press conference and here today you choose your words carefully. Are you testifying Something Different from what your report states. What im asking is if you can give me the citation i can look at the citation and evaluate whether it is accurate. Let me just clarify. You stated that you had stayed within the report, i just stated your report back to you and you said that collusion collusion and conspiracy were not synonymous terms. That was your answer was no. Thats correct. In that page 180 of volume 1 of your report it says as defined in legal dictionaries collusion is largely synonymous with conspiracy as that crime is set forth in 18 usc 371. You said you chose your words carefully. Are you contradicting your report right now . Not when i read it. So you would change your answer so yes then. No. No. If you look at the language im reading your report, sir. Its a yes or no answer. Page 180. Page 180, volume 1. This is from your report. Correct. And i leave it with the report. So the report says yes they are synonymous. Yes. Hopefully finally out of your report we can put to bed the collusion and conspiracy. One last question as were going through, did you ever look into other countries investigated in the russian interference into our election, were other countries investigated or found knowledge that they had interference in our election . Im not going to discuss other matters. Then i yield back. Gentleman yields back. The gentlelady from california. Director mueller, as youre heard from the chairman were mostly going to talk about obstruction of justice today, but the investigation of russias attack that started your investigation is why evidence of possible obstruction is serious. To what extent did the russian government interfere in the 2016 president ial election . Could you repeat that, maam . To what extent did the russian government interfere in 2016 president ial election . Well, particularly when it came to computer crimes and the like, the government was implicated. So you wrote in volume 1 that the russian government interfered in the 2016 president ial election in sweeping and systematic fashion. You also described in your report that the then Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared with a russian operative kilimnick the Campaign Strategy for winning democratic votes in midwestern states and internal polling data of the campaign, isnt that correct . Correct. They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and manaforts strategy for winning democratic votes in midwestern states months before that meeting manafort had caused internal data to be shared with kilimnick and the sharing continued for some period of time after their august meeting, isnt that correct . Accurate. In fact, your investigation found that manafort briefed kilimnick on the state of the Trump Campaign and manaforts plan to win the election and that briefing encompassed the campaigns messaging, its internal polling data, it also included discussion of Battle Ground states which manafort identified as michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania and minnesota. Isnt that correct . Thats correct. Did your investigation determine who requested the polling data to be shared with kilimnick . I would direct you to the report and adopt what we have in the report with regard to that particular issue. We dont have the redacted version, thats maybe another reason why we should get that for volume 1. Based on your investigation how could the russian government have used this Campaign Polling data to further its sweeping and systematic interference in the 2016 president ial election . Thats a little bit out of our path. Fair enough. Did your investigation find that the russian government perceived it would benefit from one of the candidates winning . Yes. And which candidate would that be . Well, it would be trump. Correct. The president. Now, the Trump Campaign wasnt exactly reluctant to take russian help. You wrote, it expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through russian efforts, isnt that correct . Thats correct. Now, was the investigations determination what was the investigations determination regarding the frequency with which the Trump Campaign made contact with the russian government . I would have to refer you to the report on that. Well, we went through and we counted 126 contacts between russians or their agents and the Trump Campaign officials or their associates. So would that sound about right . I cant say. I understand the statistic and i believe it i understand the statistic. Well, mr. Mueller, i appreciate your being here and your report. From your testimony and the report i think the American People have learned several things. First, the russians wanted trump to win. Second, the russians went on a sweeping cyber influence campaign. The russians hacked the dnc and they got the democratic game plan for the election. The russian Campaign Chairman met with russian agents and repeatedly gave them internal data, polling and messaging in the Battle Ground states. So while the russians were buying ads and creating propaganda to influence the outcome of the election, they were armed with inside information that they had stolen through hacking from the dnc and that they had been given by the Trump Campaign chairman, mr. Manafort. My colleagues will probe the efforts undertaken to keep this information from becoming public, but i think its important for the American People to understand the gravity of the underlying problem that your report uncovered. With that, mr. Chairman, i would yield back. Gentle lady yields back. Good morning, director. If you will let me quickly summarize your Opening Statement this morning, you said in volume 1 on the issue of conspiracy the special counsel determined that the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities and then in volume 2 for reasons that you explained the special counsel did not make a determination on whether there was an obstruction of justice crime committed by the president. Is that fair . Yes, sir. All right. Now, in explaining the special counsel did not make what you called a traditional prosecution or declination decision, the report on the bottom of page 2 of volume 2 reads as follows the evidence we obtained about the president s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. Now, i read that correctly . Yes. All right. Now, your report and today you said that at all times the special counsel team operated under was guided by and followed Justice Department policies and principles. So which doj policy or principle sets forth a Legal Standard that an investigated person is not exonerated if their innocence from criminal conduct is not conclusively determined . Can you repeat the last part of that question . Yeah. Which doj policy or principle sets forth a Legal Standard that an investigated person is not exonerated in their innocence from criminal conduct is not conclusively determined . Where does that language come from, director . Where is the doj policy that says that . Let me make it easier can i answer . Im sorry, go ahead. Can you give me an example other than donald trump where the Justice Department determined that an investigated person was not exonerated because their innocence was not conclusively determined . I cannot, but this is a unique situation. You cant. Time is short, i have five minutes, lets just leave it at you cant find it because i will tell you why, it doesnt exist. The special counsels job nowhere does it say that you were to conclusively determine Donald Trumps innocence or that the special counsel report should determine whether or not to exonerate him. Its not in any of the documents, its not in your appointment order, its not in the special counsel regulations, its not in the aol conditions, not in the justice manual. Nowhere do those words appear together because respectfully respectfully, director, it was not the special counsels job to conclusively determine Donald Trumps innocence or to exonerate him because the bedroom principle of our Justice System is a presumption of innocence. It exists for everyone. Everyone is entitled to it including sitting president s. And because there is a presumption of innocence prosecutors never ever need to conclusively determine it. Now, director, the special counsel applied this inverted burden of proof that i cant find and you said doesnt exist anywhere in the Department Policies and you used it to write a report and the very first line of your report, the very first line of your report says as you read this morning, this authorizes the special counsel to provide the attorney general with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel. Thats the very first word of your report, right . Thats correct. Here is the problem, director, the special counsel didnt do that. On volume 1 you did, on volume 2 with respect to potential obstruction of justice the special counsel made neither a prosecution decision or a declination decision. You made no decision. You told us this morning and in your report that you made no determination so respectfully, director, you didnt follow the special counsel regulations. It clearly says write a confidential report about decisions reached. Nowhere in here does it say write a report about decisions that werent reached. You wrote 180 pages, 180 pages about decisions that werent reached, about potential crimes that werent charged or decided and respectfully respectfully, by doing that you managed to violate every principle in the most sacred of traditions about prosecutors not offering extra prosecutorial analysis about potential crimes that arent charged. So americans need to know this as they listen to the democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle as they do dramatic readings from this report, that volume 2 of this report was not authorized under the law to be written, it was written to a Legal Standard that does not exist at the Justice Department and it was written in violation of every doj principle about extra prosecutorial commentary. I agree with the chairman this morning when he said donald trump is not above the law. Hes not. But he damn sure shouldnt be below the law which is where volume 2 of this report puts hi him. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director mueller, good morning. Your exchange with the gentle lady from california demonstrates what is at stake. The Trump Campaign chair Paul Manafort was passing sensitive voter information and poll data to a russian operative and there were so many other ways that russia subverted our democracy. Together with the evidence in volume 1 i cannot think of a more serious need to investigate. So now im going to ask you some questions about obstruction of justice as it relates to volume 2. On page 12 of volume 2 you state we determined that there were it says sufficient factual and legal basis to further investigate potential obstruction of justice issues involving the president. Is that correct . Do you have the citation, maam . Page 12, volume 2. And which portion of that page . That is we determined that there was a sufficient factual and legal basis to further investigate potential obstruction of justice issues involving the president. Is that correct . Yes. Your report also describes at least ten separate instances of possible obstruction of justice that were investigated by you and your team, is that correct . Yes. In fact, the table of contents serves as a very good guide of some of the acts of that obstruction of justice that you investigated and i put it up on the screen. On page 157 of volume 2 you describe those acts and they range from the president s effort to curtail the special counsels investigation, the president s further efforts to have the attorney general take over the investigation, the president s orders don mcgahn to deny that the president tried to fire the special counsel and many others. Is that correct . Yes. I direct you now to what you wrote, director mueller. The president s pattern of conduct as a whole sheds light on the nature of the president s acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. Does that mean you have to investigate all of his conduct to ascertain true motive . No. And when you talk about the president s pattern of conduct that would include the ten possible acts of obstruction that you investigated, is that correct, when you talk about the president s pattern of conduct, that would include the ten possible acts of obstruction that you investigated, correct . I direct you to the report for how that is characterized. Thank you. Let me go to the screen again. For each of those ten potential instances of obstruction of justice, you analyzed three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice and obstructive acts, a nexus between the act and official proceeding and corrupt intent. Is that correct . Yes. You wrote on page 178, volume 2 in your report about corrupt intent. Actions by the president to end a criminal investigation into his own conduct to protect against personal embarrassment or legal liability would constitute a core example of corruptly motivated conduct. Is that correct . Yes. To the screen again. Even with the evidence you did find, is it true as you note on page 76 of volume 2 that the evidence does indicate that a thorough fbi investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the president personally that the president could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to legal, personal and political concerns . I rely on the language of the report. Is that relevant to potential obstruction of justice . Is that relevant to potential obstruction of justice . Yes. You further elaborate on page 157, obstruction of justice can be motivated by desire to protect noncriminal personal interests, to protect against investigations where underlying criminal liability falls into a gray area or to avoid personal embarrassment. Is that correct . I have on the screen is that correct on the screen . Can you repeat the question now that i have the language on the screen . Is it correct as you further elaborate obstruction of justice can be motivated by direct desire to protect noncriminal personal interests, to protect against investigations where underlying criminal liability falls into a gray area. Yes. Or to avoid. Is that true. Yes. And is it true flat impact pardon. Can you read the last question . The last question i want to be certain i got it accurate. The last question was the language on the screen asking you if thats correct. Yes. Okay. Does the conviction of obstruction of justice result potentially in a lot of years of a lot of years of time in jail . Yes. Well, again, can you repeat the question just to make certain i have it accurate . Does obstruction of Justice Warrant a lot of time in jail. Yes. If you were convicted . Yes. Time of the gentle lady has expired. Gentleman from wisconsin. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Let me begin by reading the special counsel regulations by which you were appointed. It reads, quote, at the conclusion of the special counsels work he or she shall provide the attorney general with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel. Is that correct . Yes. Okay. Now, when a regulation uses the word shall provide does it mean that the individual is, in fact, obligated to provide whats being demanded by the regulation or statute, meaning you dont have any wiggle room, right . I would have to look more closely at the statute. I just read it to you. Okay. Now, volume 2, page 1, your report boldly states we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. Is that correct . Im trying to find that citation, congressman. Director, could you speak more directly into the microphone, please . Yes. Thank you. Its volume 2 mr. Chairman im sorry. Volume 2, page 1, it said we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. Yes. Thats right at the beginning. Thats true. Now, since you decided under the olc opinion that you couldnt prosecute a sitting president , meaning President Trump, why did we have all of this investigation of President Trump that the other side is talking about when you knew that you werent going to prosecute him . Well, you dont know where the investigation is going to lie and olc opinion itself says that you can continue the investigation even though you are not going to indict the president. Okay. Well, if you are not going to indict the president , then you just continue fishing and thats you know, thats my observation. My time is limited. Sure you can indict other people but you cant indict the sitting president , right . Thats true. Okay. Now, there are 182 pages in raw evidentiary material including hundreds of references to 302, which are interviews by the fbi for individuals who have never been crossexamined and which did not comply with the special counsels governing regulation to explain the prosecution or declination decisions reached. Correct . Where are you reading from on that . Im reading from my question. Then could you repeat it . Okay. We have 182 pages of raw evidentiary material with hundreds of references to 302s who have never been crossexamined and which didnt comply with the governing regulation to explain the prosecution or declination decisions reached. This is one of those areas which i decline to discuss. Okay. And would direct you to the report itself. Okay. Well, i looked at 182 pages of it. You know, let me switch gears. Mr. Chabot and i were on this committee during the clinton impeachment. Now, while i recognize that the independent counsel statute under which Kenneth Starr operated is different from the special counsel statute, he and a number of occasions in his report stated that the president clintons actions may have risen to impeachable conduct, recognizing that it is up to the house of representatives to determine what conduct is impeachable. You never used the term raising to impeachable conduct for any of the ten instances that the gentlewoman from texas brought is it true that theres nothing in volume 2 of the report that says that the president may have engaged in impeachable conduct . Well, we have studiously kept in the center of our investigation our mandate and our mandate does not go to other ways of addressing conduct, our mandate goes to what developing the report and turning the report into the attorney general. With due respect, you know, it seems to me, you know, that there are a couple statements that you made, you know, that said that this is not for me to decide and the implication is that this is for this committee to decide. Now, you did use the word impeachable conduct like starr did, there was no statute to prevent you from using the word impeachable conduct and i go back to what mr. Radcliffe said and that is that even the president is innocent until proven guilty. My time is up. Gentlemans time has expired. The gentleman from tennessee. Thank you, mr. Chair. First id just like to restate that what mr. Nadler said about your career. Its a model of rectitude and i thank you. Yes, sir. Based upon your investigation how did President Trump react to your appointment as special counsel . Again, i send you the report for where that is stated. Well, there is a quote from page 78 of your report, volume 2, which reads when sessions told the president that a special counsel had been appointed, the president slumped back in his chair and said quote, oh, my god, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. Im fd, unquote. Did attorney general sessions tell you about that little talk . Director, please speak into the microphone. Surely. My apologies. I am not certain of the person who originally copied that quote. Okay. Well, sessions apparently said it and one of his aides had it in his notes, too, which i believe you had. That has become record. He wasnt pleased, he probably wasnt pleased with the special counsel and specifically you because of your outstanding reputation. Correct. The attorney general recused himself from the investigation because of his role in the 2016 campaign, is that not correct . Thats correct. Recusal means the attorney general could not be involved in the investigation, is that correct . Thats the effect of recusal, yes. And so instead another trump appointee, as you know, mr. Sessions was, mr. Rosenstein became in charge of it, is that correct . Yes. Wasnt attorney general sessions following the rules and professional advice of the department of justice ethics folks when he recused himself from the investigation . Yes. And yet the president repeatedly expressed his displeasure at sessions decision to follow those ethics rules to recuse himself from recusal of that investigation. Thats accurate based on what is written in the report. And the president s reaction to the recusal as noted in the report, mr. Bannon recalled that the president was mad, as mad as bannon had ever seen him, and he screamed at mcgahn about how weak sessions was. Do you recall that from the report . Thats until the report, why he. Despite knowing that attorney general sessions was not supposed to be involved in the investigation, the president still tried to get the attorney general to unrecuse himself after you were appointed special counsel. Is that correct . Yes. In fact, your investigation found that at some point after your appointment, quote, the president called sessions at his home and asked if he would unrecuse himself. Is that not true . Thats true. Now, that wasnt the first time the president asked sessions to unrecuse himself, was it . I know there were at least two occasiones. And one of them was with flynn and one of them was when sessions and mcgahn flew to maralago to meet with the president , sessions recalled the president pulled him aside and suggested that he should do this unrecusal act, correct . Correct. And then when Michael Flynn a few days after flynn entered a guilty plea for lying to federal agents and indicated his intent to cooperate with the investigation, trump asked to speak to sessions alone again in the oval office and again asked sessions to unrecuse himself, true . I refer you to the report for that. Page 109, volume 2. Thank you, sir. Do you know of any point when the president personally expressed anger or frustrations at sessions . I would have to pass on that. Do you recall and i think its at page 78 of volume 2, the president told sessions you were supposed to protect me. You were supposed to protect me or words to that effect . Correct. And is the attorney general supposed to be the attorney general of the United States of america or the consigliere for the president . United states of america. Thank you, sir. In fact, you wrote in your report that the president repeatedly sought to convince sessions to unrecuse himself so sessions could super vice the investigation in a way that would restrict its scope, is that correct . I rely on the report. How could sessions have restricted the scope of your investigation . Well, im not going to speculate. If he obviously if he took over as attorney general he would have greater latitude in his actions that would enable him to do things that otherwise he could not. On page 113 you said the president believed that an unrecused attorney general would play a protective role and could shield the president from the Ongoing Investigation. Regardless of all that i want to thank you, director mueller for your life of rectitude and service to our country. Its clear that the president wanted former attorney general sessions to violate the Justice Department ethics rules by taking over your investigation and improperly interfering with it to protect himself and his campaign. Your findings are so important because in america nobody is above the law. I yield back the balance of my time. Thank the gentleman for eld. Ing back. The gentleman from ohio. Thank you. Director mueller, my democratic colleagues were very disappointed in your report. They were expecting you to Say Something along the lines of here is why President Trump deserves to be impeached, as much as ken starr did relative to president clinton back about 20 years ago. Well, you didnt. So their strategy had to change. Now they allege that theres plenty of evidence in your report to impeach the president , but the American People just didnt read it. And this hearing today is their last best hope to build up some sort of ground swell across america to impeach President Trump. Thats what this is really all about today. Now, a few questions. On page 103 of volume 2 of your report when discussing the june 2016 trump tower meeting you reference, quote, the firm that produced the steele reporting, unquote, the name of that firm was fusion gps. Is that correct . And you are on page 103 . 103, thats correct, volume 2. When you talk about the firm that produced the steele reporting, the name of the firm that produced that was fusion gps, is that correct . Im not familiar with that. Its not a trick question. It was fusion gps. Now, fusion gps produced the Opposition Research document widely known as the steele dossier and the owner of fusion gpa was someone named glen simpson. Are you familiar with this is outside my purview. Okay. Glen simpson was never mentioned in the 448page Mueller Report . As i said i say, its outside my purview and being handled in the about i others. He was not. 448 pages, the owner of fusion gps that did the steele dossier that started all this, hes not mentioned in there. Let me move on. At the same time fusion gps was working to collect Opposition Research on donald trump from foreign sources on behalf of the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National committee, it also was representing a russianbased company prevason which had been sanctioned by the u. S. Government. Are you aware of that . Thats outside my purview. Thank you. One of the key players in i will go to Something Different one of the key players in the june 2016 trump tower meeting was in a tall la vicinity yet ask a who you described in your report as a russian attorney who for the she had been working with done other than glen simpson and fusion gps since at least early 2014. Are you aware of that . Outside my purview. Thank you. You didnt mention ma or her connections to glen simpson at fusion gps in your report at all. Let me move on. Now, nbc news has reported the following, quote, russian lawyer in a tala vicinity yet ski i cant says she first received a supposedly incriminating information she brought to trump tower describing alleged tax evasion and information from democrats from none other than glen simpson the fusion gps owner. You didnt include that in the report and i assume thats a matter being handled by others at the department of justice. Thank you. Now, your report spends 14 pages discussing the june 9th, 2016, trump tower meeting. It would be fair to say, would it not, that you spent significant resources investigating that meeting. I refer you to the report. Okay. And President Trump wasnt at the meeting. No. Thank you. Now, in stark contrast to the actions of the Trump Campaign, we know that the Clinton Campaign did pay fusion gps to gather dirt on the Trump Campaign from persons associated with foreign governments, but your report doesnt mention a thing about fusion gps in it and you didnt investigate fusion gpss connections to russia. So let me just ask you this, can you see that from neglecting to mention glen simpson and fusion gpss involvement with the Clinton Campaign to focusing on a brief meeting at the trump tower that produced nothing, to ignoring the Clinton Campaigns own ties to fusion gps, why some view your report as a pretty onesided attack on the president . Well, i tell you this is still outside my purview. All right. I would just note finally that i guess it is by chance, by coincidence that the things left out of the report tended to be favorable to the president. My time is expired. Thank you. Director mueller, id like to get us back on track here. Your investigation found that President Trump directed White House Counsel Don Mcgahn to fire you, isnt that correct . True. And the president claimed that he wanted to fire you because you had supposed conflicts of interest, isnt that correct . True. Now, you had no conflicts of interest that required your removal, isnt that a fact . So correct. And, in fact, don mcgahn advised the president that the asserted conflicts were in his words silly and not real conflicts, isnt that true . I refer to the report on that episode. Well, page 85 of volume 2 speaks to that. Also, director mueller, doj ethics officials confirmed that you had no conflicts that would prevent you from serving as special counsel, isnt that correct . Thats correct. But despite don mcgahn and the department of justice guidance, around may 23rd, 2017, the president , quote, prodded mcgahn to complain to Deputy Attorney general rosenstein about these supposed conflicts of interest. Correct . Correct. And mcgahn declined to call rosenstein or rosenstein, im sorry, telling the president that it would look like still trying to meddle in the investigation and knocking out mueller would be another fact used to claim obstruction of justice. Isnt that correct . Generally so, why he. And, in other words, director mueller, the white House Counsel told the president that if he tried to remove you that that could be another basis to allege that the president was obstructing justice. Correct . That is generally correct, yes. Now, id like to review what happened after the president was warned about obstructing justice. On tuesday im sorry, congressman, do you have a citation . Yes, volume 2 page 81. Thank you. And 82. Id like to review what happened after the president was warned about obstructing justice. Its true that on tuesday, june 13th, 2017, the president dictated a press statement stating he had, quote, no intention of firing you, correct . Correct. But the following day, june 14th, the media reported for the first time that you were investigating the president for obstructing of justice, correct . Correct. And then after learning for the first time that he was under investigation the very next day the president , quote, issued a series of tweets acknowledging the existence of the obstruction investigation and criticizing it. Isnt that correct . Generally so. And then on saturday, june 17th, two days later, the president called don mcgahn at home from camp david on a saturday to talk about you. Isnt that correct . Correct. What was the significant what was significant about that first weekend phone call that don mcgahn took from President Trump . Im going to ask you to rely on what we wrote about those incidents. Well, you wrote in your report that on at page 85, volume 2, that on saturday, june 17th, 2017, the president called mcgahn at home to have the special counsel removed. Now, did the president call don mcgahn more than once that day . Well i think it was two calls. Sorry about that. On page 85 of your report you wrote, quote, on the first call mcgahn recalled that the president said Something Like, quote, youve got to do this. Youve got to call rudd, correct . Correct. And your investigation an report found that don mcgahn was perturbed, to use your words, by the president s request to call Rod Rosenstein to fire him, isnt that correct . Well, there was a continuous colloquy. It was a continuous involvement of don mcgahn responding to the president s and he did not want to put himself in the middle of that. He did not want to have a role in asking the attorney general to fire the special counsel, correct . Well, i would, again, refer you to the report and the way it is characterized in the report. Thank you. At volume 2 page 85 it states that he didnt want to have the attorney general he didnt want to have a role in trying to fire the attorney general. So at this point i will yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller well, first, let me ask unanimous consent, mr. Chairman, to submit this article Robert Mueller unmasked for the record. Without objection. Now, mr. Mueller, who wrote the nineminute comments you read at your may 29th press conference . Im not going to get into that. Okay. So thats what i thought. You didnt write it. A 2013 puff piece in the washingtonian about comey said basically when comey called you would drop everything you were doing, gave examples you having winner with your wife and daughter, comey calls you drop everything and go. The article quoted comey as saying if a train were coming down the tracks and i quote at least bob mueller will be standing on the tracks with me. You and james comey had been good friends, were good friends for many years, correct . We were business associates. We both started off in the Justice Department about the same time. You were good friends. You can Work Together and not be friends. We were friends. You and comey were friends. We were friends. Thats my question. Thank you for getting to the answer. Now, before you were appointed as special counsel had you talked to james comey in the preceding six months . No. When you were appointed as special counsel was President Trumps firing of comey something you anticipated investigating, potential obstruction of justice . Im not going to get into that. Internal deliberations in the Justice Department. Actually, it goes to your credibility and maybe youve been away from the courtroom for a while. Credibility is always relevant, its always material and that goes for you, too, you are a witness before us. Let me ask you when you talked to President Trump the day before you were appointed as special counsel you were talking to him about fbi director position again. Did he mention the firing of james comey. Not as a candidate. Did he mention the firing of james comey in your discussion with him . I cannot remember. Pardon . I cannot remember. I dont believe so, but you dont remember. But if he did you could have been a fact witness as to the president s comments and state of mind on firing james comey. I suppose thats possible. Yeah. So most prosecutors would want to make sure there is no appearance of impropriety, but in your case you hired a bunch of people that did not like the president. Let me ask you when did you first learn of Peter Strzoks anonymous toward donald trump . In the summer of 2017. You didnt know before he was hired . Im sorry . You didnt know before he was hired for your team . Know what . Peter strzok hated trump. Okay. You didnt know that before he was made part of your team, is that what youre saying . I did not know that. All right. And actually when i did find out i acted swiftly to have him reassigned elsewhere in the fbi. Well, there is some discussion about how swift that was, but when did you learn of the ongoing affair he was having with lisa page. About the same time i learned from strzok. Did you ever order anybody to investigate the deletion of all of their texts off of their government phones . Once we found that peter strzok was author of did you ever may i finish . You are not answering my question. Did you order an investigation into deletion and reformatting of their government phones . No, there was an ig investigation ongoing. Listen, regarding collusion or conspiracy, you didnt find evidence of any agreement, and im quoting you, among the Trump Campaign officials and any russianlinked individuals to interfere with our u. S. Election. Correct . Correct. So you also note in the report that an element of any of those obstructions you referenced requires a corrupt state of mind, correct . Corrupt intent, correct. Right. And if somebody knows they did not conspire with anybody from russia to effect the election and they see the big Justice Department with people that hate that person coming after them and then a special counsel appointed who hires dozen or more people that hate that person, and he knows hes innocent, hes not corruptly acting in order to see that justice is done. What hes doing is not obstructing justice, he is pursuing justice and the fact that you ran it out two years means you perpetuated injustice. I yield back. I take your question. The gentlemans time has expired. The witness may answer the question. I take your question. The gentleman from florida. Director mueller director mueller, id like to get back to your findings covering june of 2017. There was a bombshell article that reported that the president of the United States was personally under investigation for obstruction of justice, and you said in your report on page 90 volume 2 and i quote news of the obstruction questions prompted the president to call mcgahn and seek to have the special counsel removed, closed quote. Then in your report you wrote about multiple calls from the president to White House Counsel Don Mcgahn and regarding the second call you wrote, and i quote, mcgahn recalled that the president with as more direct, saying Something Like call rod. Tell rod that mueller was conflicts and cant be cant be the special counsel. Mcgahn recalled the president telling him mueller has to go, and, call me back when you do it. Director mueller, did mcgahn understand what the president was ordering him to do . I direct you to what we have written in the report in terms of characterizing his feelings. And in the report it says, quote, mcgahn understood the president to be saying that the special counsel had to be removed. You also said on page 86 that, quote, mcgahn considered the president s request to be an Inflection Point and he wanted to hit the brakes and he felt trapped and mcgahn decided he had to resign. Mcgahn took action to prepare to resign, isnt that correct . I would direct you again to the report. And, in fact, that very day he went to the white house and quoting your report you said, quote, he then drove to the office to pack his belongings and submit his resignation letter, closed quote. That is exactly from the report. It is. And before he resigned, however, he called the president s chief of staff, reince priebus, and he called the president s senior advisor, steve bannon. Do you recall what mcgahn told them . Whatever was said will appear in the report. It is. It is. And it says on page 87, quote, priebus recalled that mcgahn said that the president asked him to do crazy expletive. In other words, crazy stuff. The white House Counsel thought that the president s request was completely out of bounds. He said the president asked him to do something crazy. It was wrong. And he was prepared to resign over it. Now, these are extraordinarily troubling events, but you found white House Counsel mcgahn to be a credible witness, isnt that correct . Correct. Director mueller, the most important question i have for you today is why . Director mueller, why did the president of the United States want you fired . I cant answer that question. Well, on page 89 in your report in volume 2 you said, and i quote, substantial evidence indicates that the president s that the president s attempts to remove the special counsel were linked to the special counsels oversight of investigations that involved the president s conduct, and most immediately, to reports that the president was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice. Closed quote. Director mueller, you found evidence, as you lay out in your report, that the president wanted to fire you because you were investigating him for obstruction of justice, isnt that correct . Thats what it says in the report, yes, and i go i stand by the report. Director mueller, that doesnt happen in america. No president should be able to escape investigation by abusing his power, but thats what you testified to in your report. The president ordered you fired. The white House Counsel knew it was wrong. The president knew it was wrong. In your report it says theres also evidence the president knew he should not have made those calls to mcgahn, but the president did it anyway. He did it anyway. Anyone else who blatantly interfered with a criminal investigation like yours would be arrested and indicted on charges of obstruction of justice. Director mueller, you determined that you were barred from indicting a sitting president. We have already talked about that today. That is exactly why this committee must hold the president accountable. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady from alabama. Director mueller, you just said in response to two different lines of questionings that you would refer as it relates to this firing discussion that i would refer you to the report and the way it was characterized in the report. Importantly, the president never said fire mueller or end the investigation and one doesnt necessitate the other and mcgahn, in fact, did not resign, he stuck around for a year and a half. On march 24th attorney general barr informed the committee that he had received the special counsels report and it was not until april 18th that the attorney general released the report to congress and the public. When you submitted your report to the attorney general, did you deliver a redacted version of the report so that he would be able to release it to congress and the public without delay pursuant to his announcement of his intention to do so during his confirmation hearing . Im not going to engage in discussion about what happened after the production of our report. Had the attorney general asked you to provide a redacted version of the report . We worked on redacted versions together. Did he ask you for a version where the grand jury material was separated . Im not going to get into details. Is it your belief that a redacted version of the report could be released to congress or the public . Thats not in my purview. We had a process that we were operating on with the attorney generals office. Are you wear of any attorney general going to court to receive similar permission to unredacted 6 e material . Im not aware of that being done. The attorney general released the special counsels report with minimal redactions to the public and an even lesser redacted version to congress. Did you write the report with the expectation that it would be released publicly . No. We did not have an expectation. We wrote the report understanding that it was demanded by the statute and would go to the attorney general for further review. And pursuant to the special counsel regulations, who is the only party that must receive the charging decision resulting from the special counsels investigation . With regard to the president or generally . No, generally. Attorney general. At attorney generals barrs confirmation hearing he made it clear that he intended to release your report to the public. Do you remember how much of your report had been written at that point . I do not. Were there significant changes in tone or substance of the report made after the announcement that the report would be made available to congress and the public . I cant get into that. During this Senate Testimony of attorney general william barr, senator Kamala Harris asked mr. Barr if he had looked at all the underlying evidence that the special counsels team had gathered. He stated that he had not. So im going to ask you, did you personally review all of the underlying evidence gathered in your investigation . To the extent that it came through the special counsels office, yes. Did any Single Member of your team review all the underlying evidence gathered during the course of your investigation . As has been recited here today, a substantial amount of work was done, whether it be search warrants any point is there was no one member of the team that looked at everything. Thats what im trying to get at. Its fair to say that an investigation as comprehensive as yours, its normal that different members of the team would have reviewed different sets of documents and few f anyone, would have reviewed all of the underlying . Yes. How many of the approximately 500 interviews conducted by the special counsels office did you attend personally . Very few. On march 27, 2019 you wrote a letter to the attorney general essentially complaining about the Media Coverage of your report. You wrote, and i quote, the summery letter the department sent to congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of march 24 did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the department on the morning of march 25th. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the result of our investigation. Who wrote that march 27th letter . Well, i cant get into who wrote it. The internal deliberations but you signed it . What i will say is the letter stands for itself. Why did you write a formal letter since hu already called the attorney general to express those concerns . I cant get into that. Did you authorize the letters release to the media or was it leaked . I have no knowledge on either. You went nearly two years without a leak. Why was this letter leaked . I cant get into it. Was this letter written for the express purpose of attempting to change the narrative about the conclusions of your report, and was anything in attorney general barrs letter referred to aspirins pole conclusions inaccurate . The time of the gentlelady is expired. Can he answer the question, please . And the question is . Was anything in attorney general barrs letter referred to as the principle conclusions letter dated march 24th inaccurate . Well, im not going to get into that. The time of the gentlelady is expired. The gentlelady from california. Thank you, mr. Chair. Director mueller, as you know we are focusing on five obstruction episodes today. I would like to ask you about the second of those five obstruction episodes. It is in the section of your report beginning on page 113 of volume 2, entitled, quote, the president orders mcgahn to deny that the president tried to fire the special counsel, end quote. On january 25th, 2018, the New York Times reported that, quote, the president had ordered mcgahn to have the department of justice fire you. Is that correct . Correct. And that story related to the events you already testified about here today. The president s calls to mcgahn to have you removed. Correct . Correct. After the news broke, did the president go on tv and deny the story . I do not know. In fact, the president said, quote, fake news, folks, fake news. A typical New York Times fake story, end quote. Correct . Correct. But your investigation actually found substantial evidence that mcgahn was ordered by the president to fire you. Correct . Yes. Did the president s personal lawyer do something the following day in responses to that news report . I would refer you to the coverage of this in the report. On page 114, quote, on january 26th, 2018, the president s personal counsel called mcgahns attorney and said that the president wanted mcgahn to put out a statement denying that he had been asked to fire the special counsel, end quote. Did mcgahn do what the president asked . I refer you to the report. Communicating through his personal attorney, mcgahn refused, because he said, quote, that the times story was accurate in reporting that the president wanted the special counsel removed. Isnt that right . I believe it is, but i refer you again to the report. So mr. Mcgahn, through his personal attorney, told the president that he was not going to lie. Is that right . True. Did the president drop the issue . I refer to the writeup of this in the report. Next, the president told the white house staff secretary, rob porter, to try to pressure mcgahn to make a false denial. Is that correct . Thats correct. What did he actually direct porter to do . I send you back to the report. On page 113 it says, quote, the president then directed porter to tell mcgahn to create a record, to make it clear that the president never directed mcgahn to fire you, end quote. Is that correct . That is as its stated in the report. And you found, quote, the president said he wanted mcgahn to write a letter to the file for our records. Correct . Correct. And to be clear, the president is asking his white House Counsel, don mcgahn, to create a record that mcgahn believed to be untrue while you were in the midst of investigating the president for obstruction of justice. Correct . Generally correct. And mr. Mcgahn was an important witness in that investigation, wasnt he . I would have to say yes. Did the president tell porter to threaten mcgahn if he didnt create the written denial . I would refer you to the writeup of it in the report. In fact, didnt the president say, quote, and this is on page 116, if he doesnt write a letter, then maybe ill have to get rid of him, end quote . Yes. Did porter deliver that threat . I again refer you to the discussion thats found on page 115. Okay. But the president still didnt give up, did he . So the president told mcgahn directly to deny that the president told him to have you fired. Can you tell me exactly what happened . I cant beyond whats in the report. Well, on page 116, it says the president met him in the oval office, quote, the president began the Oval Office Meeting by telling mcgahn that the New York Times story didnt look good and mcgahn needed to correct it. Is that correct . As its written in the report, yes. The president asked mcgahn whether he would do a correction and mcgahn said no. Correct . Thats accurate. Well, mr. Mueller, thank you for your investigation uncovering this very disturbing evidence. My friend, mr. Richmond will have additional questions on the subject. However, it is clear to me, if anyone else had ordered a witness to create a false record and cover up acts that are subject of a Law Enforcement investigation, that person would be facing criminal charges. I yield back my time. Gentlelady yields back. The gentlemen from ohio. The fbi interviewed on february 10th, 2017. In that interview mr. Mifs had lied. You point this out that mif son denied and also falsely stated. In addition, he o mitd. Three times he lied to the fbi, yet you didnt charge him with a crime. Im sorry, did you say 193 . Volume 1, 193. Why didnt you charge him with a crime . I cant get into internal deliberations with regard to who or who would not be charged. Lets remember this. In 2016 the fbi did something they probably havent done before. They spied on two american citizens associated with a president ial campaign. George papadopoulos and carter page. They went to the fiza court and used the now famous dossier as part of the reason they were able to get the warrant and spy on parter page for more than a year. With mr. Papadopoulos they didnt go to the court. They used human sources. From the moment papadopoulos joins the campaign youve got all these people around the world starting to swirl around him. Names like halpel, downer, meeting in rome and london, all kinds of places. The fbi even spent a lady posing as somebody else who and dispatched her to london to spy on mr. Papadopoulos. In one of these meetings mr. Papadopoulos is talking to a foreign diplomat and he tells the diplomat russians have dirt on clinton. That diplomat then contacts the fbi and the fbi opens an investigation based on that fact. You point this out on page 1 of the report, july 31st, 2016, they open the investigation based on that piece of information. Diplomat tells papadopoulos the russians have dirt excuse me, papadopoulos tells the diplomat the russians have dirt on clinton, they tell the fbi. What im wondering is who told papadopoulos . How did he find out. I cant get into the yes, you can. You wrote about it. You gave us the answer on page 192 of the report, you tell us who told him. Joseph nipson is the guy who told papadopoulos. He lives in lond ns and teaches at two universities. This is the guy who told papadopoulos. Hes the guy who starts it all. And when the fbi interviews him, he lies three times and yet you dont charge him with a crime. You charge rick gates for false statements and Paul Manafort for false statements, Michael Cohen for false statements, you charge Michael Flynn, a threestar general with false statements. But the guy who puts the country through this whole saga starts it off, for three years weve lived this now. He lies, and you guys dont charge him. Im curious as to why. Well, i cant get into it and its obvious that we cant get into charging decisions. When the fbi interviewed him in february, when the special counsels office interviewed mifson, did he lie to you guys, too . I cant get into that. Did you interview mifson . I cant get into that. Is he western intelligence or russian intelligence . I cant get into that. You can charge 13 russians no one has ever heard of, no one has ever seen, no one is ever going to hear of them or see them. You can charge them and all kinds of people who are around the president with false statements. But the guy who launches everything, the guy who puts this whole story in motion, you cant charge him. I think thats amazing. Im not certain i agree with your characterizations. Well, im reading from your report. Mifson told papadopoulos, papadopoulos tells the diplomat who tells the fbi, the fbi opens the investigation july 31st, 2016, and here we are three years later, july of 2019. The country has been put through this and the central figure who launches it all lies to us and you guys dont hunt him down and interview him again, and you dont charge him with a crime. Now, heres the good news. Heres the good news. The president was falsely accused of conspiracy, the fbi does a tenmonth investigation and james comey when we deposed him a year ago told us at that point they had nothing. You do a 22month investigation. At the end of that 22 months, you find no conspiracy. And what do the democrats want to do . They want to keep investigating. They want to keep going. Maybe a better course of action, maybe a better course of action is to figure out how the false accusations started. Maybe its to go back and actually figure out why joseph mifson was lying to the fbi. And heres the good news. Heres the good news. Thats exactly what bill barr is doing. And thank goodness for that. Thats exactly what the attorney general is doing. Theyre going to find out why we went through this threeyear saga and get to the bottom of it. The time of the gentlemen is expired. In a moment, we will take a very brief fiveminute break. First, i ask everyone in the room to please remain seated and quiet while the witness exits the room. I also want to announce to those in the audience that you may not be guaranteed your seat if you leave the hearing room at this time. A very short recess. The meeting will come to order. People, please take their seats before the special counsel returns. The gentlemen from louisiana, mr. Richmond. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller, congressman deutch addressed trumps request to mcgahn to fire you. Representative bass talked about the president s request of mcgahn to deny the fact that the president made that request. I want to pick up where they left off and i want to pick up with the president s personal lawyer. In fact, there was evidence that the president s personal lawyer was alarmed at the prospect of the president meeting with mr. Mcgahn to discuss mr. Mcgahns refusal to deny the New York Times report about the president trying to fire you. Correct . Correct. In fact, the president s counsel was so alarmed by the prospect of the president s meeting with mcgahn, that he called mr. Mcgahns counsel and said that mcgahn could not resign, no matter what happened in the oval office that day. Correct . Correct. So its accurate to say that the president knew that he was asking mcgahn to deny facts that mcgahn, quote, had repeatedly said were accurate, unquote. Isnt that right . Correct. Your investigation also found, quote, by the time of the Oval Office Meeting with the president , the president was aware, one, that mcgahn did not think the story was false, two, did not want to issue a statement or create a written record denying facts that mcgahn believed to be true. The president , nevertheless, persisted and asked mcgahn to repudiate facts that mcgahn had repeatedly said were accurate. Isnt that correct . Generally true. I believe thats on page 119. Thank you. In other words, the president was trying to force mcgahn to Say Something that mcgahn did not believe to be true . Thats accurate. I want to reference you to a slide and its on page 120. And it says, substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging mcgahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the special counsel terminated, the president acted for the purpose of influencing mcgahns account in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny of the president s conduct towards the investigation. Thats accurate. Can you explain what you meant there . Im just going to leave it as it appears in the report. So its fair to say the president tried to protect himself by asking staff to falsify records relevant to an Ongoing Investigation . I would say thats generally a summary. Would you say that that action, the president trying to hamper the investigation by asking staff to falsify records, relevant to your investigation . Im going to refer you to the report, if i could, for review of that episode. Thank you. Also, the president s attempt to get mcgahn to create a false written record were related to mr. Trumps concerns about your obstruction of justice inquiry. Correct . I believe that to be true. In fact, at the same Oval Office Meeting, did the president also ask mcgahn quote, why he had told special counsels Office Investigators that the president told him to have you removed, unquote . And what was the question, sir, if i might . Let me go to the next one. The president , quote, criticized mcgahn for telling your office about the june 17th, 2017 events when he told mcgahn to have you removed. Correct . Correct. In other words, the president was criticizing his white House Counsel for telling Law Enforcement officials what he believed to be the truth . I again go back to the text of the report. Well, let me go a little bit further. Would it have been a crime if mr. Mcgahn had lied to you about the president ordering him to fire you . I dont want to speculate. Okay. Is it true that you charged multiple People Associated with the president for lying to you during your investigation . That is accurate. The president also complained that his staff were taking notes during the meeting about firing mcgahn. Is that correct . Thats what the report says. You have the report. But, in fact, its completely appropriate for the president s staff, especially his counsels, to take notes during a meeting. Correct . I rely on the wording of the report. Well, thank you, director mueller, for your investigation into whether the president attempted to obstruct justice by ordering his White House Counsel Don Mcgahn to lie to protect the president and then to create a false record about it. It is clear that any other person who engaged in such conduct would be charged with a crime. We will continue our investigation and we will hold the president accountable, because no one is above the law. The gentlemen from florida. Can you state with confidence that the steele dossier was not part of russias Disinformation Campaign . I said in my open statement that part of the building of the case predated me by at least ten months. Paul manaforts alleged crimes regarding tax evasion predated you. You had no problem charging him. As a matter of fact, this steele dossier predated the attorney general and he didnt have any problem answering the question when senator cornyn asked him the exact same question. The attorney general said, and im quoting, no, i cant state that with confidence. Thats one of the areas im reviewing. Im koernd about it and i dont think its entirely speculative. If something is not entirely speculative then it must have some factual basis. But you identify no factual basis regarding the dossier or the possibility that it was part of the russia Disinformation Campaign. Now, Christopher Steeles reporting is referenced in your report. Steele reported to the fbi that Senior Russian Foreign Ministry figures, along with other russians, told him that there was and im quoting from the steele dossier, extensive evidence of conspiracy between the Trump Campaign team and the kremlin. So heres my question. Did russians really tell that to Christopher Steele or did he just make it all up and was he lying to the fbi . Let me back up a second, if i could. Ill say as ive said earlier, with regard to the steele, that thats beyond my purview. No, it is exactly your purview, director mueller. And heres why. Only one of two things is possible. Either steele made this whole thing up and there were never any russians telling him of this vast criminal conspiracy that you didnt find. Or russians lied to steele. Now, if russians were lie to go steele to undermine our confidence in our duly elected president , that would seem to be precisely your purview because you stated in your opening that the organizing principle was to fully and thoroughly investigate russias interference. But you werent interested in whether russians were interfering through Christopher Steele. And if steele was lying, then you should have charged him with lying. But you say nothing about this in your report. Meanwhile, director, on other topics you write 3,500 words about the june meeting and the russian lawyer veselnitskaya. You write on page 10 of your report that the president s legal team suggested, and im quoting from your report, that the meeting might have been a setup by individuals working with the firm that produced the steele reporting. So im going to ask you a very easy question. On the week of june 9, who did russia lawyer veselnitskaya meet with more frequently, the Trump Campaign or glen simpson who was functionally acting as an operative for the Democratic National committee . This is under investigation elsewhere in the Justice Department. I just and if i can finish, and consequently its not within my purview. The department of justice and the fbi should be responsive to questions on this particular issue. It is absurd to suggest that an operative for the democrats was meeting with this russian lawyer the day before and the day after the trump tower meeting and yet thats not something you reference. Glen simpson testified under oath he had dinner with veselnitskaya the day before and the day after this meeting with the trump team. Do you have any basis as you sit here today to believe that steele was lying . As i said before and ill say again, its not my purview. Others are investigating what you addressed. So its not your purview to look into whether or not steele is lying. Its not your purview to look into whether antitrump russians are looking into steele. And whether simpson was meeting with russians the day before and after the Trump Campaign meeting. Im wondering how these decisions are guided. I look at the Inspector Generals report and im citing from 404 of the inspect generals report, it said page stated President Trump is not ever going to be president , right. Strzok replied no, hes not. Well stop it. Theres someone identified as attorney number two. This is page 419. Attorney number two replied held, no, and then added viva resistance they both worked on your team, didnt they . I heard strzok. Who else from you talking about . Attorney number two identified in the Inspector Generals report. And the question was . Did he work for you . Peter strzok worked for me for a period of time, yes. But so did the other guy that said viva resistance. Heres what im interesting. When People Associated with trump lied, you threw the book at them. When Christopher Steele lied, nothing. It seems to be that when glen simpson met with russians, nothing. When the Trump Campaign met with russians, 3,500 words. The team was so biased mr. Jeffries of new york is recognized. Obstruction of justice is a serious crime that strikes at the core of an investigators effort to find the truth. Correct . Correct. The crime of obstruction of justice has three elements. True . True. The first element is an obstructive act, correct . Correct. An obstructive act could include taking an action that would delay or interfere with an Ongoing Investigation as set forth in volume 2, page 87 and 88 of your report, true . Im sorry. Could you again repeat the question . An obstructive act could include taking an action that would delay or interfere with an Ongoing Investigation . Thats true. Your investigation found evidence that President Trump took steps to terminate the special counsel, correct . Correct. Mr. Mueller, does ordering the termination of the head of a criminal investigation constitute an obstructive act . That would be let me refer you ill refer you to the report on that. Let me refer you to page 87 and 88 of volume 2 where you conclude the attempt to remove the special counsel would qualify as an obstructive act if it would naturally obstruct the investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow from the inquiry. Correct . Yes. Ive got that now. Thank you. The second element of obstruction of justice is the presence of an obstructive act in connection with an official proceeding. True . True. Does the special counsels criminal investigation into the potential wrongdoing of donald trump constitute an official proceeding . And thats an area which i can not get into. Okay. President trump tweeted on june 16th, 2017, quote, i am being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi director. Witch hunt. The june 16th tweet just read was cited on page 89 in volume 2, constitutes a public acknowledgment by President Trump that he was under criminal investigation, correct . I think generally correct. One day later, on saturday, june 17th, President Trump called White House Counsel Don Mcgahn at home and directed him to fire the special counsel, true . I believe it to be true. I think i may have stated in responses to questions somewhere. That is correct. President trump told don mcgahn, quote, mueller has to go, closed quote. Correct . Correct. Your report found on page 89, volume 2 that substantial evidence indicates that by june 17th the president knew his conduct was under investigation by a federal prosecutor who would present any evidence of federal crimes to a grand jury, true . True. The third element second element having just been satisfied. The third element of the crime of obstruction of justice is corrupt intent. True . True. Corrupt intent exists if the president acted to obstruct an official proceeding for the improper purpose of protecting his own interest, correct . Thats generally correct. Thank you. The only thing i would say is we are going through the three elements of proof of the obstruction of justice charges, when the fact of the matter is we got excuse me just one second. Thank you, mr. Mueller. Let me move on in the interest of time. Upon learning about the appointment of the special counsel, the president stated to the special counsel, oh my god, this is terrible, this is the end of my presidency. Correct. Correct. Is it fair to say the president viewed the special counsels investigation as adverse to his own interest in. I think that generally is true. The investigation found evidence, quote, that the president knew that he should not have direct don mcgahn to fire the special counsel. Correct . Where do you have that quote . Page 90, volume 2. Theres evidence that the president knew he should not have made those calls to mcgahn, closed quote. I see that. Yes, thats accurate. The investigation also found substantial evidence that President Trump repeatedly urged mcgahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the special counsel terminated. Correct . Correct. The investigation found substantial evidence that when the president ordered don mcgahn to fire the special counsel and then lie about it, donald trump, one, committed an obstructive act, two, connected to an official proceeding, three, did so with corrupt intent. Those are the elements of obstruction of justice. This is the United States of america. No one is above the law. No one. The president must be held accountable one way or the other. Let me just say, if i might, i dont subscribe necessarily to your the way you analyzed that. Im not saying its out of the ballpark but im not supportive of that analytical charge. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller, over here. Hi. I want to start by thanking you for your service. You joined the marines and went to vietnam where you earned a bronze star, purple heart. You served as assistant noimds attorney leading the Homicide Department here in dc, in massachusetts and district of california. Assistant attorney general for Dojs Criminal Division and the fbi director. Thank you. I appreciate yat that. Having reviewed your biography, it puzzles me why you handled your duties in this case the way you did. The report contradicts what you taught young attorney general at the department of justice, including to ensure that every defendant is treated fairly. The prosecutor is not the representative of an ordinary party but of a sovereignty, whose interest is not that it shall win a case but that justice shall be done and the prosecutor shall strike hard blows but not foul ones. By listing the ten factual situations and not reaching a conclusion about the merits of the case, you unfairly shifted the burden of proof to the president , forcing him to prove his innocence, while denying him a legal forum to do so. And ive never heard of a prosecutor declining a case and then holding a press conference to talk about the defendant. You noted eight times in your report that you had a legal duty under the regulations to prosecutor or decline charges. Despite this, you disregarded that duty. As a former prosecutor, im also troubled with your legal analysis. You discuss ten separate factual patterns involving alleged obstruction, and then you failed to separately apply the elements of the applicable statutes. I looked at the ten factual situations and i read the case law. And i have to tell you, just looking at the flynn matter, for example, the four statutes that you cited for possible obstruction, 1503, 1505 and 1512 c 2, when i look at those concerning the flynn matter, 1503 isnt applicable because there wasnt a grand jury and director comey was not an officer of the court as defined by the statute. Section 1505 criminal lies acts that would obstruct or impede proceedings before congress. The department of justice criminal manual states that the fbi investigation is not a pending proceeding. 1512 b 3 talks about intimidation, threats or force to tamper with a witness. General flynn was not a witness and certainly director comey was not a witness. And it also talks about tampering with a record and as joe biden described the statue being debated on the senate floor, he called this a statute criminalizing document shredding and theres nothing in your report that alleges that the president destroyed any evidence. So what i have to ask you, and what i think people are working around in this hearing, is let me lay a little foundation. The ethical rules require that a prosecutor have a reasonable probability of conviction to bring a charge. Is that correct . Sounds generally accurate. And the regulations concerning your job as special counsel state that your job is to provide the attorney general with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by your office. You recommended declining prosecution of President Trump and anyone associated with his campaign because there was insufficient evidence to convict for a charge of conspiracy with russian interference in the 2016 election. Is that fair . Thats fair. Was there sufficient evidence to convict President Trump or anyone else with obstruction of justice . We did not make that calculation. How could you not have made the calculation when the regulation because the olc opinion, office of Legal Counsel, indicates that we cannot indite a sitting president. So one of the tools that a prosecutor would use is not there. But let me just stop. You made the decision on the russian interference. You couldnt have indicted the president on that and you made the decision on that. But when it came to obstruction, you threw a bunch of stuff up against the wall to see what would stick and that is fundamentally unfair. I would not agree to that characterization at all. What we did was provide to the attorney general in the form of a confidential memorandum our understanding of the case. Those cases that were brought, those cases that were declined, and that one case where the president cannot be charged with a crime. Okay. But the could you charge the president with a crime after he left office . Yes. You believe that he committed you could charge the president of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office . Yes. Ethically, under the ethical standards . Im not certain because i havent looked at the ethical standards. But the olc opinion says that the prosecutor cannot bring a charge against a sitting president , nonetheless continue the investigation to see if there are any other persons who might be drawn into the conspiracy. Time of the gentlemen is expired. The gentlemen from rhode island. Director, as you know, we are specifically focusing on five specific obstruction of justice episodes here today. I would like to ask you about the third episode. Its the section entitled the president s efforts to curtail the special counsel investigation beginning at page 90. And by curtail, you mean limit, correct . Correct. My colleagues have walked through how the president tried to have you fired bu the white House Counsel and because mr. Mcgahn refused the order, the president asked others to help limit your investigation. Is that correct . Correct. And was Corey Lewandowski one such individual . Again, can you remind me what Corey Lewandowski is the president s former campaign manager, correct . Correct. Did he have any official position in the Trump Administration . I dont believe so. Your report describes an incident in the oval office involving mr. Lewandowski on june 19, 2017 at volume 2, page 91, is that correct . Im sorry, what is the citation . Page 91. Of the second volume . Yes. A meeting in the oval office between mr. Lewandowski and the president. Okay. And that was just two days after the president called don mcgahn at home and ordered him to fire you. Is that correct . Apparently so. So right after his white House Counsel, mr. Mcgahn, refused to follow the president s order to fire you, the president came up a new plan and that was to go around all of his senior advisers and government aides to have a private citizen try to limit your investigation. What did the president tell mr. Lewandowski to do . Do you recall he dictated a message for general sessions and asked him to write it down. Is that correct . True. Did you and your team see this handwritten message . Im not going to get into what we may or may not have included in our investigation. The message directed sessions to give and im quoting from your report, to give a public speech saying that he planned to meet with the special prosecutor to explain this is very unfair and threat the special prosecutor move forward with investigating investigation meddling for future elections. Thats a page 91. Yes. I see that. Yes, it is. In other words, mr. Lewandowski, a private citizen was instructed by the president of the United States to deliver a message from the president to the attorney general that directed him to limit your investigation. Correct . Correct. And at this time mr. Sessions was still recused from oversight of your investigation, correct . Im sorry, could you restate that . The attorney general was recused from oversight. Yes. So the attorney general had to violate his own departments rules in order to comply with the president s order, correct . Im not going to get into the details. Ill just refer you again to page 91, 92 of the report. And if the attorney general had followed through with the president s request, it would have effectively ended your investigation into the president and his campaign as you note on page 97, correct . Could you page 97 you write, and i quote, taken together, the president s directives indicate that sessions was being instructed to tell the special counsel to end the existing investigation into the president and his campaign with the special counsel being permitted to move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections. Is that correct . Generally true, yes, sir. And its an unsuccessful attempt to obstruct justice is still a crime, is that correct . That is correct. And mr. Lewandowski tried to meet with the attorney general, is that right . True. And he tried to meet with him in his office so he would be certain there wasnt a public log of the visit . According to what we gathered for the report. And the meeting never happened and the president raised the issue again with mr. Line dow ski and i quote, he said if sessions does not meet with you, lewandowski should tell sessions he was fired, correct . Correct. So immediately following the meeting with the president , lewandowski asked mr. Deer born to deliver the message and mr. Deer born refuses to deliver it because he doesnt feel comfortable. Isnt that correct . Generally correct, yes. Just so were clear, mr. Mueller. Two days after the White House Counsel Don Mcgahn refused to carry out the president s order to fire you, the president directed a private citizen to tell the attorney general of the United States, who was recused at the time, to limit your investigation to future elections, effectively ending your investigation into the 2016 Trump Campaign. Is that correct . Im not going to adopt your characterization. Ill say that the facts laid out in the report are accurate. Mr. Mueller, in your report you in fact write at page 99 97, substantial evidence indicates that the president s effort to have sessions limit the scope of the special counsels investigation to future elections interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the president and his campaign conduct. Is that correct . Generally. And so mr. Mueller, you have seen a letter where 1,000 former republican and Democratic Federal prosecutors have red your report and said anyone but the president who committed those acts would be charged with obstruction of justice . Do you agree with those 1,000 prosecutors who came to that conclusion . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller, you guys, your team wrote in the report, quote this is the top of page 2, volume 1, also on page 173, by the way, you said you had come to the conclusion that, quote, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. Closed quote. Thats an accurate statement, right . Thats accurate. And im curious, when did you personally come to that conclusion . Can you remind me which half youre referring to . Top of page 2, volume 1. Okay. And exactly which paragraph are you looking at . Investigation did not establish of course. I see it. What was your question . My question now is when did you personally reach that conclusion . Well, we were ongoing for two years. You were ongoing and you wrote it at some point during that twoyear period. At some point you had to come to a conclusion that i dont think theres that theres not a conspiracy going on here. There was no conspiracy between this president. Im not talking about the rest of the president s team. Im talking about this president and the russians. As you understand, developing a criminal case you get pieces of information, pieces of information, witnesses and the like as you make your case. Right. And when you make a decision on a particular case depends on a number of factors. I understand all this. So i cannot say specifically that we reached a decision on a particular defendant at a particular point in time. But it was sometime well before you wrote the report. Fair enough . I mean, you wrote the report dealing with a whole myriad of issues. Certainly sometime prior to that report is when you reached the decision that with regard to the president himself, i dont find anything here. Fair enough . Well, im not certain i do agree with that. So you waited until the last minute when you were actually writing the report . No, but there are various aspects of the development of sure. And thats my point. There are various aspects that happen, but somewhere along the pike you come to the conclusion theres no there for this defendant. I cant speak to it. You cant say when. Fair enough. Im asking the sworn witness. Mr. Mueller, evidence suggests that on may 10th, 2017 at approximately 7 45 a. M. Six days before the Deputy Attorney general a pointed you special counsel, mr. Rosenstein called you and mentioned the appointment of a special counsel. Not necessarily that you would be appointed, but that you had a discussion of that. Is that true . May 10th, 2017. I dont have any i dont have any knowledge of that occurring. You dont have any knowledge or you dont recall . I dont have any knowledge. Evidence also suggests are you questioning that . Well, i just find it intriguing. Let me just tell you that theres evidence that suggests that that phone call took place and thats what was said. So lets move to the next question. Evidence suggests that also on may 12th, 2017, five days before the dag appointed you special counsel. Did you discuss it with him then . Not necessarily you, but that there would be a special counsel. Youve gone into waters that dont allow me to answer the particular question. It relates to conversations we would have with dieting an individual. It has nothing to the with indictment. It has to do with special counsel and whether you discussed that with mr mr. Rosenstein. Four days before you were appointed special counsel, you met with sessions and rosenstein and you spoke with special counsel. Do you remember that . Not offhand, no. Okay. And on may 16th, the day before you were appointed special counsel, you met with the president and Rod Rosenstein. Do you remember having that meeting . Yes. And the discussion of the position of the fbi director took place. Do you remember that . Yes. And did you discuss at any time in that meeting mr. Comeys termination . No. Did you discuss at any time in that meeting the potential appointment of a special counsel . Not necessarily you, but just in general terms. I cant get into the discussions on that. How many times did you speak to mr. Rosenstein before may 17th, which is the day you got appointed, regarding the appointment of special counsel . How many times prior to that did you discuss with i cant tell you how many times. Is that because you dont recall or you just i do not recall. Okay. Thank you. How many times did you speak with mr. Comey about any investigations pertaining to russia prior to may 17th, 2017 . None at all. Zero . Zero. Now, my time is expired. The time of the gentlemen is expired. The gentlemen from california. Director mueller, going back to the president s obstruction via corey lun cewandowski, it w referenced that 1,000 former prosecutors who served under republican and democratic, with 12,000 years of federal service wrote a letter regarding the president s conduct. Are you familiar with that letter . Ive read about that letter. And some of the prosecutors who signed the letter are people youve worked with. Is that right . Quite probably, yes. People you respect . Quite probably, yes. And in that letter they said all of this conduct, trying to control and impede the investigation against the president by leveraging his authority over others is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other Public Officials and people in powerful positions. Are they wrong . They had a different case. Do you want to sign that letter, director mueller . They have a different case. Director mueller, thank you for your Service Going all the way back to the 60s when you courageously served in vietnam. Because i have a seat on the intelligence later. Because of our limited time, i will ask to enter this letter into the record under unanimous consent. I will yield to my colleague from california. Thank you, director mueller for your long history of service to our country including your service as a marine where you earned a bronze star. Id like to now turn to the elements of obstruction of justice as applied to the president s attempts to curtail your investigation. The first element of obstruction of justice requires an obstructive act. Correct . Correct. Id like to direct you to page 97 of volume 2 of your report. You wrote there on page 97, quote, sessions was being instructed to tell the special counsel to end the existing investigation into the president and his campaign, unquote. Thats in the report, correct . Correct. That would be evidence of an obstructive act because it would naturally obstruct the investigation, correct . Correct. Okay. Lets turn now to the second element of the crime of obstruction of justice which includes a nexus to initial proceeding. The same page of volume 2. You wrote, quote, by the time the president s initial oneonone meeting with lewandowski on june 19th, 2017, the existence of supervised by special counsel was public knowledge. Thatst in the report, correct . Correct. That would constitute evidence of a nexus to official proceeding because a grand jury investigation is an official proceeding, correct . Yes. Okay. Id like to now turn to the final element of the obstruction of justice. On that same page, page 97, do you see where theres the intent section on that page . I do. Would you be willing to read the first sentence . And that was starting with . Substantial evidence. Indicating set of precedence . If you could read the sentence, would you do that . Im happy to have you read it. You bwrote, quote, substantil evidence indicates to have sessions limit the scope of the special counsels investigation to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the president s campaign and conduct. Unquote. Thats in the report, correct . Thats in the report. And i rely whats in the report to indicate whats happened in the paragraphs weve been discussing. Thank you. So to recap what weve heard. We have heard today that the president ordered don mcgahn to fire you. The president ordered don mcgahn to then cover that up and create a false paper trail. Now we heard the president ordered Corey Lewandowski to tell Jeff Sessions to limit your investigation so you stop investigating the president. I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met. And id like to ask you the reason again that you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating that you cannot dietindict a sitting president , correct . That is correct. The fact that the orders by the president were not carried out, that is not a defense to obstruction of justice because a statute itself is quite broad. It says that as long as you endeavor or attempt to obstruct justice, that would also toou a constitute a crime. Im not going to get into that at this junctionture. Thank you. And based on the evidence we have heard today, i believe a reasonable person could conclude that at least three crimes of obstruction of justice by the president occurred. Were going to hear about two additional crimes that would be the witness tamperings. The only thing i want to add is going through the elements with you does not mean i subscribe to the what youre trying to prove through those elements. The time of the gentleman is expired. The gentlelady from arizona im sorry. Gentleman from california. Thank you. Over here. Thanks for joining us today. You had three discussions with Rod Rosenstein about your appointment as special counsel. May 10th, 12th, and 13th, correct . If you say so. I have no reason to dispute that. Then you met with the president on the 16th with Rod Rosenstein present. Then on the 17th you were formally appointed as special counsel. Were you meeting with the president on the 16th with knowledge that you were under consideration for appointment to special counsel . I did not believe i was under consideration for counsel. The i had served two terms as fbi director. The answer is no. The answer is no. Greg jarrett describes your office as the team of partisans. And Additional Information is coming to light, theres a growing concern that political bias caused important facts to be omitted from your report in order to cast the president unfairly in a negative light. For example, john dowd the president s lawyer leaves a message with Michael Flynns lawyer in november 2017. The edited version in your report makes it appear that he was improperly asking for confidential information. And thats all wed know from your report. Except that the judge in the flynn case ordered the entire transcript released in which dowd makes it Crystal Clear thats not what he was suggesting. My question is why did you edit the transcript to hide the exculpatory amount of the message . I dont agree with we did anything to hide you omitted it. You quoted the part he said we need a heads up for the sake of protecting our interests if we can. But you omitted the part about not giving up confidential information. Im not going to go further in terms of discussing lets go on. You talked about constantines a russian ukrainian political consultant of Paul Manafort assessed by the fbi to have russian intelligence. Thats all wed know from your report. Except weve since learned from news articles that he was actually a u. S. State Department Intelligence source. Yet nowhere in your report is he so identified. Why was that not there . I dont necessarily credit what youre saying occurred. Were you aware that kalemnik was not im not going to go into did you interviiew constant e constantine . Im not going to go into our investigative moves. And yet that is the basis of your report. The problem were having is we have to reflect on your report and thats finding out its not true. For example, your report famously links Internet Troll farms with the russian government. Yet at a hearing in the Concord Management ira prosecution you initiated, the judge excorrelated for producing no evidence to support this claim. Why did you say russia was responsible for the troll farms when in court you havent had any proof. Im not going to get into that further than i have. But you left the impression throughout the country through your report it was the russian government behind the troll farms. If youre called on to provide evidence in court, you fail to do so. Again, i dispute your characterization of what occurred in that proceeding. In fact, the judge considered Holding Prosecutors in criminal contempt. She backed off only after your hastily called press conference the next day. To public pli misrepresenting the evidence . What was the question . The question is did your may 29th press conference have anything to do with the fact that the previous day the judge threatened to hold your prosecutors in contempt for misrepresenting evidence . No. Now, the fundamental problem isnt as i said, we got to take your word, your team faithfully accurately impartially and completely described all of the underlying evidence in the Mueller Report. And were finding more and more instances where this just isnt the case. And its starting to look like, you know, having desperately tried and failed to make a legal case against the president , you made a political case instead. You put it in a paper sack, lit it on fire, dropped it on our porch, rang the doorbell, and ran. I dont think its as fair, as consistent as the report we have in front of us. Then why is the time of the gentleman is expired. The gentleman from maryland is recognized. Director mueller, lets go to a fourth episode of obstruction of justice. In the form of witness tampering which is urging witnesses not to cooperate with Law Enforcement either by persuading them or intimidating them. Witness tampering is a felony punishable by 20 years in prison. The president engaged in efforts and i quote, to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Is that right . Thats correct. You have the citation . On page 7 of volume 2. Thank you. Now, one of these witnesses was Michael Cohen, the president s personal lawyer who ultimately pled guilty to campaign violencations based on hush money payments and also to lying to congress about the trump tower deal. After the fbi searched cohens home, the president called him personally and told him to, quote, hang in there and stay strong. Is that right . Yes, it is right. Also in the report actually are a series of calls made by other friends of the president. One reached out to say he was with the boss in maralago and the president said, he loves you. His name is redacted. Another redacted friend called to say he boss loves you and the third redacted friend called to say everyone knows the boss has your back. Do you remember finding that sequence of calls . Generally, yes. When the news and in fact, cohen said that following the receipt of these messages, im quoting here page 147 of volume 2. He believed he had the support of the white house if he continued to toe the party line. And he determined to stay on message and be part of the team. Thats page 147. Do you remember generally finding that . Generally, yes. Well, robert costello, a lawyer close to the president s team emailed cohen to say, quote, you are loved. They are in our corner. Sleep well tonight. And you have friends in high places. And thats up on the screen, page 147. You remember i see that. Okay. When the news first broke that cohen had arranged payoffs to stormy daniels, cohen faithfully stuck to this party line. He said that publicly that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump Campaign was a party to the transaction and neither reimbursed him. Trumps personal attorney at that point quickly texted cohen to say, quote, client says thank you for what you do. Mr. Mueller, who is the capital c client . Cant speak to that. The assumption in the context suggests its President Trump. I cant speak to that. All right. Cohen later broke and pled guilty to Campaign Finance violations and admitted they were made at the account of President Trump. Do you remember that . Yes. After cohens guilty plea, the president suddenly changed his tune towards mr. Cohen, didnt he . I would sayry lie on whats in the report. Well, he made the suggestion that cohen family members had crimes. He repeated cohens father and suggested he was guilty of fire. Generally accurate. On page 154 you give a powerful summary of these change in dynamics. Im happy to have you read it or i will read it. Would you like to read it . I would. Could you read it out loud to everybody . I would be happy to have you read it. All right. Well read it at the same time. The evidence concerning this sequence of events the president used inducements in the form of positive messages not to get cohen to cooperate and then turned to attacks and intimidation to deter the provision of information once cohen began cooperating. I believe thats accurate. Okay. And in my view, if anyone else in america engaged in these actions, they would have been charged with witness tampering. We must enforce the principle in congress you emphasize well in the last sentence of your report which is in america no person is so high to be above the law. I yield back. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Liu was asking you questions. Quote, the reason you didnt indict the president was because of the olc opinion. And you answered, that is correct. But that is not what you said in the report and its not what you told attorney general barr. In fact, in a joint statement that you released with doj on may 29th after your press conference, your Office Issued a joint statement with the department of justice that said, the attorney general has previously stated that the special counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that but for the olc opinion, he would have found the president obstructed justice. The special counsels report and his Statement Today made clear the office concluded it would not reach a determination one way or the other whether the president committed a crime. There is no conflict between these statements. So mr. Mueller, do you stand by your joint statement with doj you issued on may 29th as you sit here today . I would have to look at it more closely. Well, so you know, my conclusion is that what you told mr. Lieu really contradicts what you said in the report. And specifically repeatedly to attorney general barr and then issued a joint statement on may 29th saying that the attorney general is previously stated that the special counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying but for the olc report that we would have found the president obstructed justice. I say theres a conflict. I do have some more questions. Mr. Mueller, theres been a lot of talk today about firing the special counsel and curtailing the investigation. Were you ever fired, mr. Mueller . Was i what . Were you ever fired as special counsel, mr. Moouler . No. Were you allowed to complete your investigation unencumbered . Yes. And in fact, you resigned as special counsel when you closed up the office in late may 2019. Is that correct . Correct. Thank you. Mr. Mueller, on april 18th, the attorney general held a press conference in conjunction with the public release of your report. Did attorney general barr say anything inaccurate either in his press conference or his march 24th letter to congress summarizing the principle conclusions of your report . Well, what you are not mentioning is the letter we sent on march 27th to mr. Barr that raised some issues. And that letter speaks for itself. But then i dont see how you could that could be since a. G. Barrs letter detailed the principle conclusions of your report and you have said before that that there wasnt anything inaccurate. In fact, you had this joint statement. But let me go on to another question. Mr. Mueller, rather than purely relying on the evidence provided by witnesses and documents, i think you relied a lot on media. Id like to know how many times you cited the Washington Post in your report. How many times i what . Cited the Washington Post in your report. I did not have knowledge of that figure, but i dont have knowledge of that figure. I counted about 60 times. How many times did you cite the New York Times . I counted again, i have no idea. I counted about 75 times. How many times did you cite fox news . As with the other two, i have no idea. About 25 times. Ive got to say, it looks like volume 2 is mostly regurgitated press stories. Honestly, theres almost nothing in volume 2 that i couldnt already hear or know simply by having a 50 cable news subscription. However, your investigation cost the american taxpayers 25 million. Mr. Mueller, you cited media reports nearly 200 times in your report. Then in a footnote, a small footnote, number 7 page 15 of volume 2 of your report, you wrote not for the truth of the information contained in the stories but rather to place candidate trumps response to those stories and context. Since nobody but lawyers reads footnotes, are you concerned that the American Public took the embedded news stories time of the gentlelady is expired. The gentlelady from can mr. Mueller answer the question . No. Were running short on time. I said the gentlelady from washington. Thank you. Director mueller, lets turn to the fifth of the obstruction episodes in your report. That is the evidence whether President Trump engaged in witness tampering with Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort whose foreign ties were critical to your investigation into russias interference in our election. This starts at volume 2, page 123. Your office got indictments against manafort and Trump Deputy Campaign manager rick gates in two different jurisdictions, correct . Correct. And your office found that after a grand jury indicted them, manafort told gates not to plead guilty to plead guilty to any charges because, quote, he had talked to the president s personal counsel and they are going to take care of us. Is that correct . Thats accurate. And one day after manaforts conviction on eight felony charges, quote, the president said that flipping was not fair and almost ought to be outlawed. Is that correct . Im aware of that. In this context, what does it mean to flip . Have somebody cooperate in a credible investigation. And how essential is that cooperation to any efforts to combat crime . Im not going to go beyond that characterizing that effort. Thank you. In your report, you concluded that President Trump and his counsel Rudy Giuliani made repeated statements that a pardon was a possibility for manafort while also making it clear that the president did not want manafort to flip and cooperate with the government. End quote. Is that correct . Correct. And witness tampering can be shown where someone with an improper motive encourages another person not to cooperate with Law Enforcement, is that correct . Correct. Now, on page 123 of volume 2, you also discussed the president s motive. And you say that as Court Proceedings move forward against manafort, President Trump, quote, discussed with aides whether and in what way manafort might be cooperating and whether manafort knew any information that would be harmful to the president , end quote. Is that correct . That was a quote from from page 123, volume 2. Yes. When someone tries to stop another person from working with Law Enforcement and they do it because theyre worried what that person will say, it seems clear from what you wrote that this is a classic definition of witness tampering. Now, mr. Manafort did eventually decide to cooperate with your office and he entered into a plea agreement. But then he broke that agreement. Can you describe what he did that caused you to tell the court that the agreement was off . I refer you to the Court Proceedings on that issue. So on page 127 of volume 2, you told the court that mr. Manafort lied about a number of matters that were material to the investigation. And you said that manaforts lawyers also, quote, regularly briefed the president s lawyers on topics discussed and the information that manafort had provided in interviews with the special counsels office. Does that sound right . And the source of that is . Thats page 127, volume 2. If its from the report, i support it. Thank you. Two days after you told the court that manafort broke his plea agreement by lying repeatedly, did mr. Trump tell the press that mr. Manafort was, quote, very brave because he did not flip. If its in the report, i support it as it is set forth. Thank you. Director mueller, in your report you make a very serious conclusion about the evidence rathering the president s involvement with the manafort proceedings. Let me read to you from your report. Evidence concerning the president s conduct toward manafort indicates the president intended to encourage manafort to not cooperate with the government. It is clear that the president both publicly and privately discouraged mr. Manaforts cooperation or flipping while also dangling the promise of a pardon if he stayed loyal and did not share what he knew about the president. Anyone else who did these things would be prosecuted for them. We must ensure that no one is above the law. I thank you for being here. Yield back. Gentleman from pennsylvania. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller. Im over here. Sorry. Are you familiar with the nowexpired independent counsel statute . Its the statute under which ken starr was appointed. That ken starr did what . Im sorry. Are you familiar with the independent counsel statute . Are you talking about the one were operating under now or previous . No, under which ken starr was appointed. Im not but id be happy to take your question. Well, it was allowed to expire after ken starrs investigation. The final report requirement was a major reason why the statute was allowed to expire. Even president clintons a. G. Janet reno expressed concerns about the final report requirement. And ill quote a. G. Reno. She said, on one hand the American People have an interest in knowing the outcome of an investigation of their highest officials. On the other hand, the report requirement cuts against many of the most basic traditions and practices of american Law Enforcement. Under our system, we presume innocence and we value privacy. We believe that information should in most cases be made public if theres an indictment or prosecution, not any lengthy and detailed report filed after a decision has been made not to prosecute. The final report provides a forum for unfairly airing a targets dirty laundry. It also creates another incentive for an independent counsel to overinvestigate in order to justify his or her tenure and to avoid criticism that the independent counsel may have left a stone unturned. Those are a. G. Renos words. Didnt you do exactly what she feared . Didnt you publish a lengthy report unfairly airs the dirty laundry without recommending charges . I disagree with that. Did any of your witnesses have the chance to be cross examined . Can i just finish my answer on that . Quickly. I operate under the current schoout. Not the original statute. So i am most familiar with the current statute. Did any of the witnesses have a chance to be cross examined . Did any of the witnesses in our investigation . Yes. Im not going to answer that. Did you allow the people mentioned in your report to challenge how they were characterized . Im not going to get into that. Given that a. G. Barr stated multiple times during his confirmation hearing that he would make as much of your report public as possible, did you write your report knowing it would likely be shared with the public . No. Did knowing the report could and likely would be made public, did that alter the contents which you included . I cant speak to that. Despite the expectations that your report would be released to the public, you left out significant exculpatory evidence. Evidence favorable to the president , correct . Actually, i would disagree with you. I think we strove to put into the report exculpatory where you said you said there was evidence you left out. You make a choice as to what goes into an indictment. Isnt it true that on page one of volume two, you state when youre quoting the statute, the obligation to either prosecute or not prosecute. Generally that is the case. Although most cases are not done in the context of the president. And in this case you made a decision not to prosecute, correct . No, we made a decision not to decide whether to prosecute or not. So essentially what your report did was everything that a. G. Reno warned against. I cant agree with that characterization. Well, what you did is compiled a nearly 450 you compiled nearly 450 pages of the worst evidence you gathered against the target of your investigation who happens to be the president of the United States and you did this knowing you were not going to recommend charges and the report would be made public. Not true. Mr. Mueller, as a former officer in the United States j. A. G. Corps, i prosecuted in a baghdad courtroom and for our navy s. E. A. L. S. So im very well versed in the american legal system. The drafting in the publication of some of the information in this report without an indictment, without prosecution, frankly flies in the face of american justice. And i find those facts of this entire process unamerican. I yield the remainder of my time to jim jordan. Director mueller, the third renewal happens a month after youre named special counsel. Did that deal with im not going to answer that. Time has expired. Director mueller, a couple of my colleagues right here wanted to talk to you or ask you about lies. So lets talk about lies. According to your report page 9 volume 1, witnesses lied to your office and to congress. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of russia interference according to your report. Other than the individuals who pled guilty to crimes based on their lying to you and your team, did other witnesses lie to you . I think there probably are a specter of witnesses in terms of those who are not telling the full truth. And those are outright liars. Thank you. Outright liars. It is fair to say then that there were limits on what evidence was available to your investigation of both Russian Election interference and obstruction of justice. Thats true and usually the case. And that lies by Trump Campaign officials and Administration Officials impeded your investigation. I would generally agree with that. Thank you so much, director mueller. You will be hearing more from me in the next hearing so i yield the balance of my time to mr. Korea. Thank you. Mr. Mueller, first of all let me welcome you. Thank you for your service to our country. Youre a hero. Vietnam war vet. Wounded war vet. We wont forget your service to our country. Thank you, sir. I may begin because of time limits weve gone in depth only on five possible episodes of obstruction. Theres so much more. And i want the focus on another section of obstruction which is the president s conduct concerning Michael Flynn. The president S National Security adviser. In early 27, the informed that mr. Flynn had lied to government authorities about his communications with the Russian Ambassador during the Trump Campaign in transition. Is this correct . Correct. If a hostile nation knows that a u. S. Official has lied publicly, that can be used to blackmail that government official, correct . Im not going to speak to that. I dont agree necessarily but im not going to speak any more to that issue. Thank you. Flynn resigned in 2016. The very next day when the president was having lunch with new jersey governor chris christie, did the president say, open quotes, now that we fired flynn the russia thing is over, closed quote . Is that correct . Correct. And is it true that christie responded by saying, open quotes, no way. This russia thing is far from over, closed quote. Thats the way we have it in the report. Thank you. And after the president met with christie, later that same day the president arranged to meet with thenfbi director james comey. Alone in the oval office, correct . Correct. Particularly at the you have the citation to the page . According to comey, the president told him, open quote, i hope you can see your way to clear to letting this thing go, to letting flynn go. Hes a good guy and i hope you can let it go. Closed quote. Page 40, volume 2. Accurate. What did comey understand the president to be asking . Im not going to get into what was in mr. Comeys mind. Comey understood this to be a direction because of the president s position and the circumstances of the onetoone meeting page 40 volume 2. I understand its in the report. And i support it as being in the report. Thank you, sir. Even though the president publicly denied telling comey to drop the investigation, you found, open quote, substantial evidence corroborating comeys account over the president s. Is this correct . Thats correct. The president fired comey on may 9th, is that correct, sir . I believe thats the accurate date. Thats page 77, volume 2. You found substantial evidence that the catalyst for the president s firing of comey was comeys, open quote, unwillingness to publicly state that the president was not personally under investigation. Im not going to delve more into the details of what happened. If its in the report, then i support it because its already been reviewed appropriately appears in the report. And thats page 75, volume 2. Thank you. Thank you. In fact, the next day, the president told the Russian Foreign minister, open quote, i just fired the head of the fbi. It was crazy, a real nutjob. I face great pressure because of russia. Thats taken off. Im not under investigation, closed quote. Is that correct . Thats what was written in the report, yes. Time of the gentleman has expired. Thank you, sir. Gentleman from virginia. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller, weve heard a lot about what youre not going to talk about today. So lets talk about something that you should be able to talk about. The law itself. The underlying obstruction statute and your creative legal analysis of the statutes in volume two. Particularly your interpretation of 1512c. Section 1512c is a statute created as part of auditing financial regulations for public companies. As you write on page 164 of volume 2, this was provided as a floor amendment and closed a loophole with document sledding. Also alters, drois a document or other to impair the objects integrity or availability for a official proceeding. Other than if strzoks attempts to do so shall be fined not more than 20 years or both. The analysis and application of the statute proposes to give clause two a much border interpretation than commonly used. First proposed to read it as a Free Standing provision prohibiting any act influencing a proceeding if done with an improper motive. And the analysis of the statute. Taken by Public Officials exercising their discretionary powers. If those acts influence a proceeding. So mr. Mueller, id ask you in analyzing the obstruction, you state that you recognize that the department of justice and the courts have not resolved these issues, correct . Correct. Youd agree not everyone in the Justice Department agreed with your legal opinion, correct . Im not going to be involved in a discussion on that at this juncture. In fact, the attorney general himself disagrees with your interpretation of the law, correct . I leave that to the attorney general to identify. You would agree that prosecutors sometimes improperly adhere to the law. I would have to agree with that one. They were based on an incorrect legal thatter are i. Weve all spent time in the trenches trying casing. Not won every one of those cases. One of your top prosecutors against Arthur Anderson lower court which was subsequently overturned and a unanimous purchase. Im not going to get into that may i just finish . May i just finish my answer . Yes. Im not going to get involved in a discussion on that. I will refer you to that citation that you gave me at the outset for the lengthy discussion on just what youre talking about and to the extent i have anything to say about it, it is what weve already put into the report on that. I am reading from your report when discussing this section. Ill read from the decision of the Supreme Court unanimously reversing mr. Wise man when he said its striking how little its required. Even a instructions also diluted the meaning of skruptly such that it covered innocent conduct. Let me just say let me move on. I have limited time. You take the broadest possible provision and applied it. Im concerned about your over criminalizing conduct by officials and private citizens alike. To emphasize how broad it is, i want to ask a few examples. In 2015 during the investigation into the Hillary Clinton use of a private email server, President Trump said i dont think it created a National Security problem. Couldnt president obama be charged for obstruction of justice . I refer again to the report. But with Andrew Weisman, hes one of the more talented attorneys weve had over a period of time. He has run a number of units i have very limited time. In august 2015, a very senior doj official called fbi director Andrew Mccabe introducing concern they areare are you telling me to shut down an investigation to which the official replied of course not. This seems to be somebody within the executive branch to interfere with this. Couldnt that person have been charged with. Obstruction. I refer to you to our lengthy dissertation on exactly those issues that appears at the ond the report. It says above the time of the gentleman has expired. Our intent was to conclude this hearing in three hours. Given the break that would bring us to approximately 11 40. We will ask our remaining democratic members to voluntarily limit their time below the five minutes so we can complete our work as close to that time frame as possible. I recognize the gentlelady from pennsylvania. Thank you. I want to ask you some questions about the president s statements regarding advanced knowledge of the wikileaks dumps. So the president refused to sit down with your investigators for an inperson interview, correct . Correct. So the only questions we have from the president are contained in appendix c to your report. Thats correct. So looking at appendix c on page five, you asked the president over a dozen questions about whether he had knowledge that wikileaks possessed or might possess the emails that were stolen by the russians. I apologize kpp you start it again . Okay. Sure. So were looking at appendix c. Right. And appendix c, page 5 you asked the president about a dozen questions about whether he had knowledge that wikileaks possessed the stolen emails that might be released in a way helpful to his campaign or harmful to the Clinton Campaign. Is that correct, you asked those questions . Yes. Okay. In february of this year, mr. Trumps personal attorney Michael Cohen testified to congress, quote, mr. Trump knew from roger stone in advance about the wikileaks dump. End quote. Thats a matter of Public Record. Are you referring to the report or some other record . This is testimony to congress. Im not specifically familiar with what he testified to before congress. Okay. Lets look at an event described on page 18 of volume 2 of your report. And were going to put it up in a slide, i think. According to Deputy Campaign manager rick gates in the summer of 2016 he and candidate trump were on the way to the airport and gates told your investigators that candidate trump was on a phone call and when the call ended, trump told gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming, end quote. Do you recall that from the report . If its in the report, i support it. Okay. And thats on page 18 of volume 2. Now, on page 77 of volume 2, your report also stated, quote, in addition to some kwnss said that trump privately sought wikileaks pieces is that correct . Correct. In appendix c, he said, quote, i do not recall discussing wikileaks with him m. Doesing with individuals associated with mu campaign. If its from the report, it is correct. Is it fair to deny being aware that anyone associated with the campaign discussed with stone. Could you repeat that one . Is it fair that the president denied knowledge of himself or anyone else discussing wikileaks dumps with mr. Stone . Yep. And with that i yield back. Thank you, maam. Thank you, mr. Chair. Mr. Mueller, did you apply for the job a day before you were appointed. Zblifs not applying for the job. I was asked to give my input on what it would take to do the job which triggered the interview youre talking about. So you dont recall on may 16th, 2017, that you interviewed with the president regarding the fbi director job. I interviewed with the president. Not about me applying if they are job. So your statement here today is you didnt interview to apply for the fbi director job . Thats correct. So did you tell the fbi director position would be the one job you would come back for . I dont recall that one. You dont recall that, okay. Given your 22 months of investigation, tens of millions of dollars spent, and millions of documents, did you say russians changed voters. I cant speak to that. Theres no voter change changed because of their interference. Im asked based on the documents you had. That was outside our purview. The bakt of that meddling was undertaken by other agencies. Okay. You stated in your Opening Statement that you would not get into the details of the steele dossier, however, many sometimes on page 23, 27, and 28 you mentioned the unverified allegations. How long did it take you to reach the conclusion that it was unverified. Im not going to speak to that. Its actually in your report multiple times that its unverified and youre telling me youre not willing to tell us to how you came to say it was unverified. . True. When did you decide it was unverified to spy on carter page . Im sorry. What was the question . When did you become aware that the unverified steele dossier was included in the fisa application to spy on carter page. Im not going to speak to that. Your team interviewed christopher sale, is that correct . Im not going to get into that. You cant tell this committee whether you interviewed him . At the outset, i said this is one of the investigations that is being handled by others in the department of justice. But youre here testifying about this today and im asking you directly did any member of your team or did you interview christopher seal . And im not going to answer that question, sir. You had two years to investigate. Not once to investigate how unverified document that was paid for by a political opponent was used to obtain a warrant to spy on the opposition political come pain. Did you do any investigation on that . I do not accept your characterization of what occurred. What would be your characterization . Im not going to speak any more to it. So youre not going to speak any more to it but dont agree with my characterization. Is that correct . Yes. The fisa application makes reference to source one who is Christopher Steele. The fisa application says conducting the research into candidate ties to russia based on sources reporting history with fbi whereby source one provided reliable information to the fbi. They believe it to be credible. Do you think the representation that it was credible to be accurate. Im not going to answer that. So youre not going to respond to any of the questions regarding Christopher Steele or your interviews with them . As i said at the outset this morning, that was one of the investigations that i could not speak to. Well, i dont understand how if you interviewed an individual on the purview of this investigation that youre testifying to us today that youve closed that investigation, how thats not within your purview to tell us about your investigation and how you interviewed. I have nothing to add. Okay. Well, i can guarantee you the American People want to know. And im very hopeful and glad that a. G. Barr is looking into this and the Inspector General is looking into this because youre unwilling to answer the questions of the American People as it relates to the basis of this investigation into the president. And the very basis of this individual who you did interview. Youre just refusing to answer those questions. Cant the president fire the fbi director at any time without reason under article one of the constitution . Yes. Article two. Yes. Thats correct. Cant he fire you without any reason . I believe that to be the case. We without any reason. Well, hold on. You said without any reason. I know special counsel can be fired but im not sure it extends to whatever reason. Youve testified you werent fired. You were able to complete your investigation in full, is that correct . Im not going to add to what ive stated before. My times expired. The gentlelady from pennsylvania. From texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you, mr. Mueller for being with us close to the afternoon now. Director mooul we are i would like to ask you about the president s answers relating to roger stone. Roger stone was indicted for multiple several crimes alleged that future releases with the Trump Campaign. Understanding theres a gas order on the stone case, i will keep my questions limited. Let me just say at the outset, i dont mean to disrupt you, but im not i would like the demarcation of that which is applicable to this but also in such a way it does hinder the other prosecution taking place. I understand that. Im only going to be talking about the questions that you asked in writing to the president that relate to mr. Stone. Thank you, maam. Mr. Stones indictment states among other things the following. Stone was contacted by senior trump officials, the about future releases of organization one. Organization one being wikileaks. The indictment continues, quote, stone told the campaign about releases of damaging material by wikileaks. So in short, the indictment alleges that stone was asked by the Trump Campaign to get information about more wikileaks releases and that stone, in fact, did tell the Trump Campaign about potential future releases. Correct . Yes, maam. But i see according to from the indictment and even though the indictment is a public document, i feel uncomfortable discussing anything having to do with the stone prosecution. Right. The indictment is of record and we pulled it off of the im reading straight from it. Well, turning back to the president s answers to your questions then. On this very subject, the president ever discussing releases with stone. And denied whether anyone on his campaign had those conversations with stone. If you had learned that other witnesses putting aside the president , if other witnesses had lied to your investigators in response to specific questions. Whether in writing or in an interview. Would they be charged with false statement crimes . Well, im not going to speculate. I think youre asking for me to speculate given a set of circumstances. Lets go more specific. Could guy to jail for up to five years . Yes. Although its congress, so. Well, thats the point, though, isnt it . That no one is above the law. Thats true. Not you. Not the congress. And certainly not the president. And i think its just troubling to have to hear some of these things and thats why the American People deserve to learn the full facts of the misconduct described in your report for which any other person would have been charged with crimes. So thank you for being here and again, the point has been underscored many times but ill repeat it, no one is above the law. Thank you. Thank you, maam. The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized. Mr. Mueller, how many people on your staff did you fire during the course of the investigation . How many people did you fire . Im not going to discuss that. You fired according to Inspector Generals report, attorney number two was let go and we know peter strzok was let go, correct . And there may have been other persons on other issues either transferred or fired. Peter strzok testified before this committee in 2018 that he was fired because you were concerned about preserving the appearance of independence. Do you agree . Say that again . He said he was fired at least partially because you were concerned about preserving the appearance of independence with the special counsel investigation. Do you agree with that statement . The statement was by whom . Peter strzok at this hearing. Im not familiar with that. Did you fire him because you were worried about the appearance of independence . No. He was transferred as a result of instances involving texts. Do you agree that your office did not only have an obligation to operate within the appearance of independence swell . Yes. We struggled to do that over the two years. Part of doing that was Andrew Weisman is one of your top attorneys . Yes. Did he have a role for selecting other attorneys . He had some roll. Dont know when i found that out. On january 30th, 2017, weisman wrote an email to Deputy Attorney general yates stating i am so proud and in awe with her disobeying a direct order from the president. Did he disclose that email to you. Im not going to talk about that. Is that not a conflict of interest . Im not going to talk about that. Are you aware that miss jeanne ree represented Hillary Clinton during the time of the emails during her time yes. Aaron seb zebley destroyed one of clintons mobile devices and you must be aware by now that six of your lawyers donated 12,000 directly to Hillary Clinton. Im not even talking about the 49,000 they donated to other democrats. Just the donations to the opponent who was the target of your investigation . Can i speak for a moment to the hiring practices . Sluure. We strove to hire individuals who could do the joj. Ive been in this business for almost 25 years. In those 25 years ive not had occasion once to ask about somebodys political affiliation. It is not done. What i care about is the cape nlt of the individual to do the job and do the job seriously and quickly and with integrity. Thats what im saying. This isnt just about you being able to vouch for your team. That this is about no matter what this report concluded, half are going to be skeptical. Thats why we have recusal laws. Specifically list ts not just political conflict of interest but the appearance of political conflicts of interest. Its just simply not enough you vouch for your team. Demands that no perceived bias exists. I cant imagine a single prosecutor or judge that ive appeared in front of would be comfortable with these circumstances where half of the Prosecutorial Team had a direct relationship to the opponent of the person being investigated. We hired 19 lawyers over the period of time. Of those, 14 of them were transferred from elsewhere in the department of justice. Only five came from outside. We and had not had a direct relationship with the opponent of the person you were investigating. Thats my point. I wonder if not a single word in this entire report was changed but rather the only difference was we switched Hillary Clinton and President Trump. If peter strzok had tweeted those things about Hillary Clinton instead of President Trump. If they went to trumps my colleagues would have spent the last four months accusing your team of being bought and paid for by the Trump Campaign and we couldnt trust a single word of this report. They would still be accusing the president of conspiracy with russia. And with that i yield back. The gentleman from colorado. Director mueller, thank you for your service to our country. Id like to talk to you about the evidence in your report showing the president directing his son and Communications Director to issue a false Public Statement in june of 2017 about a meeting between his campaign and russian individuals at trump tower in june of 2016. According to your report, mr. Trump jr. Was the only trump associate who participated in that meeting and who declined to be voluntarily interviewed by your office. Is that correct . Yes. Did mr. Trump jr. Or his counsel ever communicate to your office any intent to invoke his fifth amendment right against selfincrimination . Im not going to answer that. You did pose written questions to the president about his knowledge of the trump tower meeting. You included also asked him about whether or not he had directed a false statement. I dont have it in front of me. I take your word. I can represent to you that c13 states as much. According to page 100 of volume 2, your investigation found hope hicks in june of 2017 was shown emails that set up the trump tower meeting. And she told your office that she was, quote, shocked by them details. You have the citation . Sure. Page 100 of volume 2. While youre flipping to that page, i will also tell you orgt page 99 of volume 2, those emails in question stated according to your report that russia had offered to incriminate hillary in her dealings with russia as part of russia and the governments support for mr. Trump. Trump jr. Responded if its what you say, i love it. And he kushner and month fort met with the m on june 9th, 2016. Correct . Generally accurate. Isnt it true thaw miss hicks told your office that he went mull pl times to the president to, quote, urge him that they should be fully transparent about the june 9th meeting, end quote. But the president each time said no. Correct . Accurate. And the reason was because of those emails which the president , quote, believed would not leak. Correct . Well, im not certain how its characterized, but generally correct. Did the president direct miss hicks to say, quote, only trump jr. Because his at the same time cru crushed. Let me just check one thing. Yes. And according to miss hicks, the president still directed her to say the meeting was only about russian adoption, correct . Yes. Despite knowing that to be untrue. Thank you. I yield back the amount of my time. Mr. Mueller, youve been asked over here on the far right, sir. Youve been asked a lot of questions here today. To be frank, youve performed as most of us expected. Youve stuck closely to your report and you have declined to answer many of our questions on both sides. As the closer for the republican side i know youre glad to get to the close i want to summarize what we have heard and what we know. You spent two years and nearly 30 million in taxpayer dollars to prepare a nearly 450 page report. Millions of americans today maintain genuine concerns about your work because of the emphasis of bias between your members. Campaign finance reports later showed that excuse me. Its my time. That team of democrat investigators you hired donated 60,000 to the hillary Clinton Campaign and other candidates. Your Team Included peter styrk and lisa page to confirm they openly mocked an hated donald trump and they vowed to take him out. Mr. Radcliff asked can you give an an example where the Justice Department determined where an investigative person was not kp exonerated. You answered i request ncannot. That is unprecedented. The president believed you and your special counsel team had conflicts. Yet, President Trump cooperated fully with the investigation. He knew he had done nothing wrong and he encouraged all witnesses to cooperate and produced more than 1. 4 million pages of information and allowed over 40 witnesses affiliated with the white house or his campaign. Your report acknowledges on page 61 that a volume of evidence exists of the president telling me people privately, quote, the president was concerned about the impact of the Russian Investigation on his abilities to govern and to address important Foreign Relations and matters of National Security. On page 174 your report acknowledges that the Supreme Court has held quote, the president s removal powers are at their zenith with respect to principal officers. That is officers who must be appointed by the president and report to him directly. That would even include the attorney general. In spite of all of that, nothing ever happened to stop or impede your special counsels investigation. Nobody was fired by the president. Nothing was curtailed and the investigation continued for 22 long months. The evidence did not establish the president was involved in an underlying crime relating to russian interference and the evidence, quote, did not establish that the president or those close to him were involved in any russian conspiracies or had an unlawful relationship with any russian official. Unquote. Over those 22 months the president became frustrated as many of the American People did. He vented to his lawyer and Close Associates and shared his frustrations on twitter. While the president social media accounts might have influenced some in the media or the opinion of some of the American People, none of those audiences were targets or witnesses in your investigation. The president never affected anybodys testimony. He never demanded to end the investigation or demand you be terminate and never misled congress, the doj or the special counsel. Those are undisputed facts. There will be a lot of discuss today and great frustration throughout the can untcountry t you couldnt answer any questions about the origins of this cherade. As our hearing is concludesing we will get no comment on that from you. Mr. Mueller theres one primary reason why you were called here today and by the democrat majority. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle just want political cover. They wanted you o tell them they should impeach the president. The one thing you have said clearly is your report is complete and thorough and you agree with and stand by its recommendations and all of its content. Is that right . True. Your report does not recommend impeachment, does it . Im not going to talk about recommendations. It does not concludes that impeachment would be appropriate here . Im not going to talk about that issue. Thats one of the many things you wont talk about today. I think we can all draw our own conclusions opini conclusions. I do thank you for your service. Im glad we can get back to our business. With that i yield back. Our intent was to conclude this hearing at around 11 45. All the republican members have asked their questions but we have a few remaining democratic members. They will be limiting their questions so with director muellers we will finish within 15 minutes. Your investigations of the russian attack on our democracy and the obstruction of justice were extraordinarily productive. Under two years your charged 37 people with crimed. You convicted five individuals. Five of whom were top trump aides. Charges remain pending against more than two dozen russian persons or entitieentities. Let me start with the trump aides. Would you agree they are Paul Manafort, President Trumps campaign manager, rick gates, Michael Flynn, former National Security adviser, Michael Cohen p, t p, the persons personal attorney. George papadopoulos, correct. Correct. The sixth trump associate will face trial later this year, correct . That person would be roger stone, correct in. Correct. Im not certain what you said by stone he is in another court system as i indicated before. Exactly. Thank you. I want to thank you for work that you did. In less than two years, your team was able to uncover an incredible amount of information related to russias attack on our elections and to obstruction of justice. There is still more that we have to learn. Destate facing unfair takes and even here today, your work has been substantive and fair. The work has laid the Critical Foundation for our investigation and for that i thank you. I thank you. With that i yield back the balance of my time. The gentleman from arizona. Thank you. Im disappointed that some have questioned your motives. I want to remind the American People of who you are and your Exemplary Service our country. Youre a marine. You served in vietnam and earned a bronze star and a purple heart, correct . Correct. Which president appointed you to become the United States attorney for massachusetts . Which senator . Which president . I think that was president bush. According to my notes it was president ronald reagan. My mistake. Under Whose Administration did you serve as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Dojs Criminal Division . Which president . Yeah. That would be george bush one. That is correct. President george h. W. Bush. After that you took a job at a Prestigious Law Firm and after a couple of yeerars you reentere Public Service prosecutor homicides here in washington, d. C. Is that correct . Correct. When you were named director of the fbi, which president first appointed you . Bush. The Senate Confirmed you with a vote of 980, correct . Surprising. You were sworn in as director just one week before the september 11th attacks. True. You helped to protect this nation against another attack. You did such an outstanding job that when your ten year term expired the Senate Unanimously voted to extend your term for two years. True. When you were asked in 2017 to take the job as special counsel the president had skrus fired james comey. The Justice Department and the fbi were in turmoil. You must have known there would be an extraordinary dhchallenge. Why did you accept . Thats a bit off track. Its a challenge. Some people have attacked the political motivations of your team. Even suggested your investigation was a witch hunt. When you consider people to join your team, did you ever even once ask about their political affiliation . Never once. In your entire career as a Law Enforcement official have you made a hiring decision based upon a persons political affiliation . No. If i might interject. The capabilities that we have shown in the report was a result of a team of agents and lawyers who were absolutely exemplary and were hired because of it will value to get the job done. Youre a patriot. You acted fairly and with restrai restraint. There were circumstances you could have filed charges but you declined. Not every prosecutor done that and certainly one on a witch hunt. The takes intensified because your report is damming. I believe you did uncover substantial evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. Let me Say Something else that you were right about. The only remedy for this situation is for congress to take action. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. The jengentle lady from pennsylvania. Good morning. Got you. Sorry. Thank you. I wanted to ask you about public confusion connected with attorney general barrs release of your report. I will be quoting your march 27th letter. In that letter and at several other times did you convey the introduction and executive summaries summarizes this offices work and conclusions, end quote. I have to say the letter itself speaks for itself. Those were your words in that letter. You wrote to the attorney general that quote, the summary letter, the letter that the department sent to congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of march 24th did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this offices work and conclusions, end quote. Is that correct . I rely on the letter itself for its terms. Thank you. What was it about the reports context nature, substance the the attorneys general did not capture . I think we captured that in the march 27th responsive letter. This is from the 27th letter. What were some of the specifics that you thought directed you to that letter itself. Okay. You finish that letter by saying there is now public confusion about critical aspects as a result of our investigation. Could you tell us specifically some of the public confusion you identified . I go back to the letter and the letter speaks for itself. Could attorney general barr have avoided public confusion if he released your summaries . I dont feel comfortable speculating on that. Shifting to may 30th an attorney said you could have reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity end quote, on the part of the president. Did the attorney general or his staff tell you he thought you should make a decision on whether the president engaged in criminal activity . Im not going to speak to what the attorney general was thinking or saying. If the attorney general had directed you or ordered you to make a decision on whether the president engaged in criminal activity would you have so done . I cant answer that question in the vacuum. Director mueller, i thank you for being here. I agree with your march 27th letter. There was public confusion and the president took full vau advantage by falsely claiming your report found no obstruction. Let us be clear, your report did not exonerate the president. It provided substantial evidence of obstruction of justice leaving congress to do its duty. We shall not shrink from that duty. I yield back. The gentle lady yields back. I have a point of inquiry over on your left. Gentleman will state his point of inquiry. Was the point of this hearing to get mr. Mueller to recommend impeachment . Thats not a fair point of inquiry. The gentle lady from florida is recognized. Director mueller im to your the gentle lady from florida is recognized. I thank you for coming here. Youre a patriot. I want to refer you to volume 2, page 58. You wrote that quote, the president s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or exceed to his request . Is that right. That is accurate. That is what we found. Youre referring to senior add vierzs who disobeyed the president s orders like don mcgahn, Cory Lewandowski. We have not specified the persons. Don mcgahn did not tell the basicing attorney general that the special counsel must be removed but was prepared to resign over the president s orders. You also explain an attempt to obstruct justice does not have to succeed to be a crime, right in. True. Simply attempting to obstruct justice can be a crime, correct . Yes. So, even though the president s aides refused to carry out his orders to interfere with your investigation, that is not a defense to obstruction of justice by this president , is it . Im not going to speculate. To reiterate, trying to obstruct justice ks can be a cr, correct . Yes. You say the president s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful and thats because not all of his efforts were unsuccessful, right . Youre reading into what we have written in the report. I was going to ask you if you could just tell me which ones you had in mind successful when you wrote that sentence. Im going to pass on that. Director mueller, today we have talked a lot about the separate acts by this president but you also wrote in your report that quote, the overall pattern of the president s conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature of the president s acts and the inferences can be drawn about his intent. Accurate from the report. On page 158, again, i think its important for every one to note that the president s conduct had a significant change when he realized that it was the investigations were conducted to investigate his obstruction acts. In other words, when the American People are deciding whether the president committed obstruction of justice they need to look at all of the president s conduct and overall pattern of behavior, is that correct . I dont disagree. Thank you. Director mueller, i have certainly made up my mind about what we have reviewed meets the elements of obstruction including whether there was corrupt intent and what is clear is that anyone else, including some members of congress, would have been charged with crimes for these acts. We would not have allowed this behavior from any other previous 44 president s. We should not allow it now or for the future to protect our democracy and yes, we will continue to investigate because as you clearly state at the end of your report, no one is above the law. I yield back my time. Gentle lady yields back. The gentle lady from texas. Director mueller, you wrote in your report that you quote, determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, end quote. Was that in part because of an opinion by the department of justice, office of Legal Counsel that a sitting president cant be charged with a crime . Yes. Director mueller at your may 29th, 2019 press conference you explained that the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal Justice System to formally accuse a kiti ingsitting presid wrong doing, end quote. That proscess other than the criminal Justice System, is that impeachment . Im not going to comment on that. In your report, you also wrote that you did not want to quote, potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing president ial misconduct, end quote. For the nonlawyers in the room, what did you mean by potentially preempt constitutional processes . Im not going to try to explain that. That actually is coming from page 1 of volume 2 in the footnote is the reference to this. What are those constitutional processes . I think i heard you mention at least one. Impeachment, correct . Im not going to comment. Okay. That is one of the constitutional processes listed in the report in the footnote in volume two. Your report documents the many ways the president sought to interfere with your investigation and you state in your report on page 10, volume 2 that with an interfering with a congressional inquiry or investigation with corrupt incident can also constitute obstruction of justice. True. Well, the president has told us that he intends the fight all the subpoenas. His continued efforts to interfere with investigations of his potential misconduct reinforce the process the constitution requires to formally accuse a sitting president of wrong doing as you cited in the report. This hearing has been very helpful to this committee as it exercises its constitutional duty to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the president. I agree with you director mueller that we all have a vital role in holding this president accountable for his actions. More than that, i believe we in congress have a duty to demand accountability and safeguard one of our nations highest principles that no one is above the law. From everything that i have heard you say here today its clear that anyone else would have been prosecuted based on the evidence available in your report. It now falls on us to hold President Trump accountable. Thank you for being here. Chairman, i yield back. Mr. Chairman. Gentle lady yields back. Personal privilege. Our side got our five minutes in also. Mr. Mueller, thank you for being here. I join the chairman in thank you for being here. Thank you. Director mueller, we thank you for attending todays hearing. Before we conclude, i ask every one to remain seated and quiet while the witness exits the room. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days for questions for the witness. Without objection, the hearing is now adjourned. After three hours and about 40 minutes, Robert Mueller concludes his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. In a approximately 30 minutes, he will be back in the witness chair before the House Intelligence Committee. There are 22 members on that. They will get their chance to ask Robert Mueller questions about russian interference. Right now we want to take you to one of the cameras outside of the hearing room where the House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Elijah Cummings is talking to reporters. Were watching as the lawmakers exit the House Judiciary Committee room and the room is cleared for then the House Intelligence Committee members to make their way in and get seated for their round of questioning. They will also get five minutes of time to question Robert Mueller, the former special counsel. That expected to start at around 12 45 p. M. Eastern time. Our coverage continuing here on cspan3 throughout the day. Well get your reaction for what you heard. As you saw, there are cameras set up outside of this Committee Room here on capitol hill. Were waiting for lawmakers to come to those cameras. When and if they do, well bring you that coverage. I think i saw gjim jordan behin the reporters there. Well try to listen in. Im encouraged the attorney general believes its not speculative to suggest the steel dossier was very much a part of russias Disinformation Campaign. How would you characterize muellers grasp . I found him rather intellectually dishevelled during the hearing. He seemed unwilling to answer basic questions that people want to know. I think democrats hoped this hearing would be launch off for impeachment. It looked like a death rattle for impeachment. Mueller told lui he would have indicted. Should he have indicted . There are statements that are joint statements from the attorney general and special counsel stating there were other factors and mr. Mueller writes about those factors. Theres a legitimate exercise of article 2 power this president was engaged in that many of these alleged instances of obstruction occurred in plain view as to not imply corrupt intent and lack of any underlying criminal offense. Unequivocally a great day for republicans and were glad that chairman nadler scheduled a hearing. Does that concern you of more jeopardy if hes not reelected for 2020 . His tenure may have been extended by four years as a consequence of this hearing and the American People see the entire origin of this investigation is so corrupt and so rotten that even Robert Mueller wouldnt answer questions about it. How do you explain the fact that he writes nothing about the fact that glen simpson meets with a vu russian working with democrats the day before and the day after. You know why. He always looks for a way in the report to needle trump and avoid any consequence. Its because he had people on his team who said they would stop trump from being president. You even had lawyer identified by the Inspector General pledging his allegiance to the resistance. Mueller didnt remember that. It was like it had evaded his memory. Would you like to see andrew testify . I think we have seen all we need to see. There are many members of this team with connections to democrat. Kelly armstrong of north dakota pointed that out. We did not see a rigorous defense of the mueller team by mr. Mueller himself because theres no response to the fact that he had people who with overwhelmingly democrat partisans. Democrat donors. There wasnt balance on the team. Its reflected in the work and in mr. Muellers inability to answer questions. When he says thats outside my purview, whose purview is in it . He doesnt view that within his purvi purview, it seems he understo misunderstood everything. I dont know much about that. He said that. I dont think the president will be leaving office for another four years. Thats a decision other prosecutors have to make. I dont believe the evidence is there. The president will have strong defenses. Were looking a t t ing at the years. Should Government Employees be asked about their political affiliations while being interviewed . Absolutely not but peoples donations to someone who is on the other side of an election, the opponent, that ought to be analyzed. We even had the Inspector General state in his testimony before the oversight and the Judiciary Committee that this is improper to take people who had investigated Hillary Clinton clintons email scandal and migrate them to the office of special counsel is incorrect. It should not have happened. It resulted in this orgy of bias on the mueller team. Should prosecutor be sasked their partisan conflicts before . This isnt a question about someones personal views. Its Public Record the donations that people make to candidates. If you had 14,000 worth of donations to Hillary Clinton on the mueller team it informs on why even though there was substantial evidence that democrats were colluding with russians and mueller is hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil when it comes to that nexus. They put to bed the conclusion conspiracy issue. His actual report says that. We can put that now to bed. When the democrats wanted to talk about obstruction. He disagreed with their findings. There was nothing knew found out today and now we just have Robert Muellers take. The fact that Robert Mueller says it does not exonerate the president , does that mean responsibility to keep investigating . If you keep listening its interesting how he wouldnt explain that and also when we actually talked to him about that, its something unique to never have a prosecutor, that was never the job to begin with. He said he didnt have enough to find him guilty. Thats something not reporting. You still think the report exonerates the president in. There was no collusion and no conspiracy. People can read that. Do you think this changes the mind . I think the process for impeachment was already going down. We saw that among public. Theyre getting tired of this. They know there was nothing there. I think this today did not help that narrative. Im hoping we can put a period here and now instead of saying maybe if. We can have a period and get back to the business that this committee is supposed to be doing instead of talking about problems and solving them. I think that happened today. D there was nothing that moved the needle today except that there were a lot of things that mueller didnt answer. There was no nothing knew from his report. He confirmed that there was nothing else he added today. What about the exchange that said you did not indict the president because of the olc guidance and mr. Mueller said that is correct. You take that in the totality he also went onto say he disagreed with his line of obstruction theory in that same exchange. Do you think republicans effectively questioned mr. Mueller in. I think the republicans did effectively question him. I think we got what we wanted to do. I think the democrats had everything they wanted to question. I think we have found exactly what we started with. Theres been no movement. Its now time to move on and actually do the business that this committee is supposed to be doing. We have delayed actually doing Committee Work for seven and a half months. That should end today. Thank you very much. I would like to suggest we have delayed doing the work of this committee for eight years and we just started it up when jerry nadler took over. This was an important hearing. Mr. Mueller, an American Hero made clear that any other person who did the acts that trump did would have been indicted for justice and but for that you cant indict a sitting president is the reason why he was not indicted. When trump and barr said no obstruction, they lied to the American People. When they said that he was totally exonerated, he lied. Mr. Mueller made that clear. Today was an important day that the Mueller Report was spoken to the American People and that the Mueller Report was let out in all of its fulsome nature. Do you think what you heard today moved the needle in term of getting support . I think it definitely will and to impeach and understand we have an unlawful, lawless president who needs to be reined in. Why do you think they will change their minds . I think because mr. Mueller made the clear point that any other person other than a person hiding behind, able to hide behind the Justice Department policy of not indicting that particular individual because he is above the liaw as long as hes president would be indicted. We have a president who was individual one in Southern District of new york and but for a policy of the Justice Department, he would have been suggested he would be indicted by Robert Mueller. We have a lawless person in the white house. I thought mr. Mueller did an excellent job. Im in awe of being around him. I think in time it may be there because this president will commit more acts in the future that are viviolations. He told a bunch of school kids that constitution lets him do anything he wants. The man does not have restraint. He hasnt had it since he was a baby. He dangled pardons in front of people and tried to get mcgahn to make a false statement. Mcgahn stood up as an American Hero and truthful person. If i might. Thank you so very mump. Sheila jackson lee. Let me be clear on what we accomplished today. Riveted throughout the entire line of questioning was over and over again the president obstructed justice. There needs not be an underlying crime to obstruct justice. Those are elements of the constitutional process of impeachment. Were here today as a piece of the Ongoing Investigation. He stands by his report. He stands on his report and hes not waivering. The star witness refused to testify. Mr. Mueller tried to get the president of the United States to come and testify. He did not. That would not be case of a constitutional proceedsing. I can assure you as this hearing is further analyzed, you will find that the elements dealing with telling staff to lie, dealing with interfering with witnesses dealing with the question of dangling of a pardon to interfere with a witness. Dealing with the attorney general to unrefuse yourself. You have to ask yourself the question, if any other president had done these acts, would a proceeding not be in place. I would make the argument that were doing it the right way which is we are building the Building Blocks for people to ful fully comprehend how massive. I cannot imagine we could accept this as the new norm. Why did you decide to read the report to him . Why not have him tell you what was in the report itself . The strategy of questioning or the approach of questioning was to solicit the truth. If we did it in manner of presents the report and he said yes or no, thats the truth. We didnt alter or edit his words. We just gave him his words and he said yes. Spervcific instances where h recounted the evidence he collected from the president and direct don mcgahn to lie about it. He asked a third party, Cory Lewandowski to go tell the attorney general to tell the special counsel to limit his investigation to future president ial campaigns ending this investigation. The special counsel made it clear this president would have been charged with crimes. This report came to life. I think it will be a powerful moment for people to reflect on what action is next. We believe the time has long past to open a formal impeachment inquiry to begin the process of considering whether or not articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors ought to be filed. I think todays testimony further supports that. Obstruction of justice is a serious offense. It goes the heart of our Justice System. You dont have to be successful. Any attempt to obstruct justice is a serious crime. We saw it overwhelming evidence of that as it relates to the president. You comment on mr. Muellemue decision not to elaborate on the report. I think the special counsel testified the way you would expect a prosecutor to testify. Very soberly. I think we were quoting back his own words because we had very limited time. We wanted to make certain we got the evidence in and the contents of the report. I think it was a strategy to make sure we maximize the value of the time we had. Your exchange, you asked him you did not indict you think he misheard you . Do you think thats what he believes . Thats what we believes. We have felon sitting in the white house. What the American People and other members of congress do with that, well see in the next few days. This hearing established that the president ordered don mcgahn to fire him. The president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper trial and the president ordered Cory Lewandowski to curtail the investigation. We established he tampered with two witnesses. We hope the American People see this for what it is. Do you believe the one word answers, true, correct, yes, no were really effective strategies, really moved the ball for the American People . For people that read the report, this hearing was not surprising. For people that did not, this should have blown their mind. They saw Robert Mueller saying yes to multiple instances of obstruction of justice. We have a felon in the white house. The American People are seeing it. Its a felony. Its not even a misdemeanor that Robert Mueller said someone could go to jail for a very long time. You all read the report . Was the movie as good as the book . You were trying to create a movie version. The critical thing is that the American People saw overwhelming and devastating evidence of obstruction of justice related in fine detail by the committee and the witness. Its irrefutable. Were all on the edge of our seats to see what happens in the afternoon about volume one. In terms of volume two this is a great victory for the truth and for the possibility of justice and the country because america finally got to see what special counsel mueller was talking about. There were repeated efforts by President Trump to obstruct justice. To fire the special counsel, to cover up his efforts to fire the special counsel. To get people the lie, to coach witnesses, to influence testimony. All of this is in outrageous betrayal of his office and the rule of law. Yet thats precisely what this president did in trying to obstruct justice. He tlieed etried to obstruct t investigation. Its an absurd situation that the president has plunged us into. Now the whole country can see it. Members of Congress Read the report when it came out and felt there was evidence in the redacted version to launch an impeachment inquiry. There 80 or 90 members of congress who asked is one very logical way to go. The administration has been trying the stone wall and cover up from the very beginning. Im afraid to say that attorney general bar was very much part of that. We should have had this hearing back in late march or early april when the report first came out. Attorney general barr did everything he could to pull the wool over every ones eyes which is what prompted special counsel mueller to write two letters of protest about the confusion that attorney general barr created in the country. We didnt get the redacted version for three and a half weeks and weve been piercing this fog of propaganda that attorney general barr and donald trump laid down. I think today begins to dispel the fog. Will Speaker Pelosi offer . Up i think the speaker has been clear. Shes reflected the consensus of our caucus. As more members review the evidence and the hearing, when the broad consensus of the caucus is its time, i think the speaker will reflect that. I think those conversations continue. I see them all the time. People are really taking this responsibility seriously and soberly and looking at this evidence and contemplating the next course of action. A majority of our caucus will believe in impeachment and well move forward with one. The special counsel testified as he would testify. He was careful in the language he would use. He confirmed the contents of his report. It revealed significance evidence of criminalalty by the president. I think it was helpful in terms of providing the American Public as to clarity as to what the special counsel investigation entailed. How does this move the needle for you and the colleagues. The American People might not have known but what about your colleagues. How does this change your minds. Most of the American Public has not read the book. Many members of congress has not read it at all. I think the hearings this morning and this afternoon will provide the American Public and members of congress who have not reviewed the report with an attorney to learn more about the special counsels findings. I suspect that they after doing that many of them will reach the same conclusions that we have. Not only have most persons read they report but they relied on the attorney general who you expect to be truthful and clearly was not. I think you guys will tell us. Well see. Several Committee Lawmakers making their way to their seat. Theyre getting ready for the second hearing. That expected to get under way in about six minutes. Each of those members will get five minutes of questioning of the former special counsel. We saw they scheduled three hours of testimony and it went three hours and 40 minutes. Right now a break happening for the former special counsel. He will be back in the room. The same room as the House Judiciary Committee for his 90th appearance before congress. His 89th just early this morning. You can go back and watch it on our website. Well continue with our live coverage. You can watch both hearings tonight. Lets go back into the Committee Room and wait and watch for round two of Robert Muellers testimony