The investigation. Is that right . Thats correct. And you have a citation . Page seven, volume two. Thank you. One of these witnesses was michael cohen, the president s personal lawyer, who ultimately pled guilty to Campaign Violations based on secret hush money payments to two women the president knew and also to lying to congress about the hope for a 1 billion trump tower deal. After the fbi searched cohens home, the president called him up personally, he said to check in, and told him to, quote, hang in there and stay strong. Is that right . Do you remember finding that . If its in the report as stated, yes, it is right. Yes. 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 the boss loves you. And a third redacted friend called to say everyone knows the boss has your back. Do you remember
thank you, mr. chairman. just recently, mr. mueller, you said mr. liu was asking you questions. i quote, the reason you didn t indict the president is because of the olc opinion. you answered, that is correct. but that is not what you said in the report, and it s 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 counsel s report in his statement today made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination
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 that it would likely be shared with the public? no. did knowing that the report could and likely would be made public, did that alter the contents which you included? i can t speak to that. despite the expectations that your report would be released to the public, you left out significant exculpatory evidence. in other words, evidence favorable to the president, correct? well, i actually would disagree with you. i think we strove to put into the report exculpatory evidence as well. you said there was evidence you left out. you make a choice as to what goes into an indictment. isn t it true, mr. mueller, that on page one of volume two, you state you had the obligation
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 i ll repeat it. no one is above the law. thank you. thank you, ma am. the gentleman from north dakota 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? i m not going to discuss that. according to inspector general s report, attorney number two was let go. we know peter strzok was let go. yes, and there may have been other persons on other issues that either transferred or fired. peter strzok testified before this committee that he was fired because you were concerned about preserving the appearance of independence. do you agree with this testimony? say that again, if you could. he said he was fired at least
the trump organization nor the trump campaign was a party to the transaction and neither reimbursed him. trump s 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 thanking cohen for what he does? i can t speak to that. okay. the assumption and the context suggests very strongly it s president trump. i can t speak to that. okay. cohen later broke and pled guilty to campaign finance offenses and admitted fully they were made, quote, at the direction of candidate trump. do you remember that? yes. after cohen s guilty plea, the president suddenly changed his tune towards mr. cohen, didn t he? i would say i d rely on what s in the report. well, he made the suggestion that cohen family members had committed crimes. he targeted, for example, cohen s father-in-law and repeatedly suggested he was