Report actually does i would perhaps want to address the question of whether, you know, he didnt come to a finding on obstruction, because he meant to leave that up to congress. I mean, that said, he is doing this at the Justice Department. I think if he does decide to draw those sort of, you know, lines of difference from barr, hes going to do it gently. Unless this is a very different Robert Mueller then everyone at the Justice Department is used to, then Michael Zeldin is used to, were not going to see him coming out and flame throwing. That said, it wouldnt be surprise me if he does take time to thank his team for their hard work and for their professionalism, because they have said nothing in the face of being under attack for two years. If youre just joining us, were expecting Special Counsel Robert Mueller here he is. Lets listen in. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. Two years ago, the Acting Attorney General asked me to serve as Special Counsel and he created the Special Counsels
office. The Appointment Order directed the office to investigate russian interference in the 2016 president ial election. This included investigating any links or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign. Now, i have not spoken publicly during our investigation. I am speaking out today because our investigation is complete. The Attorney General has made the report on our investigation largely public. And we are formally closing the Special Counsels office and as well, im resigning from the department of justice to return to private life. Ill make a few remarks about the results of our work. But beyond these few remarks, it is important that the offices written work speak for itself. Let me begin where the
Appointment Order begins, and that is interference in the 2016 president ial election. As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, russian Intelligence Officers who are part of the Russian Military launched a concerted attack on our political system. The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated Cyber Techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake Online Identities and through the organization wikileaks. The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a president ial candidate. And at the same time as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private russian entity engaged in a social media operation, where russian citizens posed as americans in
order to influence an election. These indictments contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The indictments allege and the other activities in our report describe efforts to interfere in our political system. They needed to be investigated and understood. And that is among the reasons why the department of justice established our office. That is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. The matters we investigated were of paramount importance. It was critical for us to obtain full and Accurate Information from every person we questioned. When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their governments
effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable. Let me say a word about the report. The report has two parts, addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. The first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election. This volume includes a discussion of the Trump Campaigns response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. And in the second volume, the report describes the results and analysis of our Obstruction Of Justice investigation involving the president. The order appointing me Special Counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the
Acting Attorney General apprised of the progress of our work. And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. The introduction to the volume ii of our report explains that decision. It explains that under Longstanding Department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. A Special Counsels office is part of the department of justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. The departments Written Opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. Those points are summarized in our report and li will describe two of them for you. First, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president , because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. Among other things, that evidence could be used if there were coconspirators who could be charged now. And second, the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal Justice System to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. And beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to
potentially it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no Court Resolution of the actual charge. So that was Justice Department policy. Those were the principles under which we operated. And from them, we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. That is the offices final position and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. We conducted an independent Criminal Investigation and reported the results to the Attorney General, as required by department regulations. The Attorney General then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to congress and to the american people. At one point in time, i requested that certain portions of the report be released and
the Attorney General preferred to make preferred to make the entire report public all at once and we appreciate that the Attorney General made the report largely public. And i certainly do not question the Attorney Generals good faith in that decision. Now, i hope and expect this to be the only time that i will speak to you in this manner. I am making that decision myself. No one has told me whether i can or should testify or speak further about this matter. There has been discussion about an appearance before congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before
congress. In addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office. So beyond what ive said here today and what is contained in our written work, i do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the Justice Department or congress. And its for that reason i will not be taking questions today, as well. Now, before i step away, i want to thank the attorneys, the fbi agents, the analysts, the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. These individuals who spent nearly two years with the Special Counsels office were of the highest integrity. And i will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were
multiple, systemic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every american. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Sir, if youre subpoenaed will you appear before congress . No questions. A tenminute statement from Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel, soon to be the former Special Counsel with some significant news, jake, especially his point, what he has said, he has said. Not saying anymore. Doesnt want to have to go before congress and testify. He defended the investigation. He was very specific in articulating its conclusions. There were a number of things he said that could be interpreted as specific pushbacks to things that we hear from the white house. But i have to say, the last statement he made, one presumes that he thinks that that is the most important thing that hes saying, because its what hes leaving everybody with. That is, there were multiple, systemic attempts, by the russians, to interfere in the 2016 election. And that is something that amidst all of the political back and forth, all of the false claims from the white house and from the president s detractors, keeps getting lost. Other countries are trying to interfere in our elections and we are not, according to experts, doing enough to stop that. And that is, i think, what he wanted his last message to be. Beyond that, there were a number of things he said that i thought were rather pointed, standing up for the people on his investigation, saying that they are of the highest integrity, despite all of the falsehoods we keep hearing about them from the white house and others. And obviously, saying that if we had evidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. And he kept saying that the longstanding Justice Department guideline is that a sitting president of the United States cant be indicted, cant be charged with a crime, and as a result, they didnt go ahead and charge him with any crime, in part because of that. And sara murray, one of the things he definitely made clear,
Robert Mueller is, i do not want to testify publicly. I want this to be the last of it. If you want to know what i think, read the report. Thats right. He made it very clear that if he is essentially forced to show up, all youre getting from him is whats already in the report. This is his work product. He wouldnt go beyond that. He was speaking publicly. The furthest he went beyond the words of the report is that we would not reach a determination on whether the president obstructed justice. We decided we would not reach a conclusion on this based on our Justice Department Department Guidelines and based on our view of fairness. But he wants his work product to stand for itself and not to be a political football. We decided what happened when barr made a determination and barr wrote these letters and then everyone starts to begin feel like its tinged by politics. And i think that Robert Mueller very much feels like he wants this product to stand as is. Although, i should say, he defended mr. Barr, the Attorney General. He really, he did. But i will say, just outside of what i agree with Everything Sarah said. He clearly does not he wants the report to speak for itself, but he also wants to have it the other way. And he essentially punted to congress at that podium today. He said that the constitution requires a process outside of the criminal Justice System, outside of the Justice Department system, to handle what the president is accused of doing here. Hes saying, essentially, what he did not say in this report, by the way, you know, if they had by the way, if he had said that in the report, i think it would have been a lot less speculation about, well, did he was mueller trying to punt to congress. Today, he made clear, i think, that that is exactly what this was intended to do. That we couldnt do it at the Justice Department, we cant even indict a sitting president under seal, and unseal it after he leaves office. What we are allowed to do is investigate and then allow a separate process to handle it, if that is necessary. In this report, obviously, we
said this at the time, is a road map for impeachment. And like evan said, what he just described for the first time, hearing him and seeing him, was why they did this, and more importantly, why he fundamentally did not believe that they could go any further within their probe. He said it would be unconstitutional. It would be unconstitutional and just unfair to charge somebody or accuse somebody with a crime and then not allow them to be tried. But i think that what you said earlier is really key. He also explicitly repeated the notion that had he felt he could exonerate the president , he would have done so. Because he said, john king, he said, if the president had not committed a crime, we would have said so. Its very clear Director Mueller does not want to be part of the daily conversation about this. He wants this document to speak for itself. But to the point jake made right out of the gate, he hadnt spoken in two years. He knew every word he said would
be parsed closely and pushed back about every single argument that the president and his team have made about this report. From the beginning, they interfered to damage a president ial candidate. That the russians took sides. The president says, no big deal, they did something, they had some facebook accounts, Jared Kushner has said. No, they interfered to damage a president ial candidate out of the box. He didnt say there was no collusion, to your point. He said, we had insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. Theres a lot of footsie between the Trump Campaign and the russians and wikileaks laid out in this document. He said, insufficient evidence. He didnt say, there was no there there. Then he went on to the Obstruction Part and he said, we did not make a determination as to whether they didnt commit a crime, because he could not. He could not. And he lays out the evidence there. Throughout this. And at the very end, to your point at the very end, not only did he say, come back to the interference and say the integrity of american elections, he said, it deserves the attention of every american. Whats the last thing he said. The president of the United States gives it no attention. Robert mueller knew what he was
saying. Laura jarrett is over at the Justice Department. You were there inside the room, laura, when the Special Counsel spoke out. What were you seeing . Reporter well, it was interesting, wolf, he was be himself. I had wondered whether members of his team, his Core Deputies would be there along with him, some of the faces that weve seen in court when he hasnt been there. And today, it was really just he be himself. There were some toplevel officials from the Justice Department in the criminal division, the National Security division, the Deputy Attorney generals office, which has been overseeing this investigation for the better part of two years. But mueller was by himself. Which was just a striking image to have him be the sole voice there. Obviously, the Attorney General, bill barr, not there either. And given that barr was not in the room, i wondered how much he would contradict barr in terms of, we already had known that he had some issues with how barr had laid out muellers principle conclusions in that controversial fourpage memo. And as all of you have been discussing, he clearly felt
constrained by the longstanding doj protocol on not indicting a sitting president. He said, simply, that it wasnt an option we could consider, they thought it was unconstitutional. So they didnt even get to that point given the longstand, doj protocol. I also thought it was interesting that he pointed out that even if he was to give testimony, it will not go beyond the report. He seemed to be setting the stage there, managing expectations a little bit, on both sides. Obviously, democrats have a lot invested in what this man would say. Republicans have said they want to hear from him, as well, for different reasons. But the fact that he was trying to sort of explain to everyone, as much as you have invested in this, i am not going to go beyond the contents of the report, and said almost, dont expect to even hear from me again after this report. This is the last statement i really want to make on the substance. And finally, i just wanted to point out, i thought it was very interesting at the end that he took a moment to thank the fbi agents, the analysts, the
attorneys, everyone who had work on this case, given the drumbeat that we have heard from the president himself about all of the socalled coup that has gone on, all of the statements the president has made, relentlessly attacking this man and his deputies for so long, it was interesting to hear from mueller himself, thanking his team. Thats right. He described them as being fair and independent and of the highest integrity. Certainly a blowback to the insane coup charge. I want to bring in cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, jennifer rogers, to get her their. Jennifer, what did you think . I thought that muellers pain point was throughout this statement to defend the investigation. Yes, he defended the investigators personally, too, which i think was important, but all of these attacks on the investigation and how it got started and what they did in the early days, it was really important, i think, for mueller to come out and say, no, this investigation is really important. Heres what was happening in russia. Heres how they were attacking
our electoral systems. Heres why it was important for us to look at this. This could have been used against coconspirators. Heres why its important to gather it. Thats what he was doing. Really saying, this investigation was important, it was worthwhile, it was necessary. My team and i did our jobs the way we were supposed to do them and trying to kind of tamp down and push back on all of those attacks on how the investigation got going and how it was conducted. You know, it was very significant. I want to play the clip, what this Special Counsel said about the evidence that he collected and if there had been specific evidence he might have done Something Else. Listen to this. The order appointing me Special Counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. Now, we conducted that investigation and we kept the office of the Acting Attorney General apprised of the progress
of our work. And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. All right, Michael Zeldin, thats a powerful statement we just heard from the Special Counsel. Right. This was quintessential mueller. A man of few words. And what he did in this ten minutes was to deliver the Executive Summary that he wanted to be delivered with his report. He hit all the highlights of the testimony thats in that report in a very succinct fashion, saying the two important things that weve all talked about, one, there was an interference with the election. And that the Trump Administration was receptive to that. And i did not charge, not because of any reason other than the evidence didnt allow me to charge it by doj policy. Those are two important statements for mueller to have made. The other way to look at it
is, hes saying, look, the president , you know, could have committed a crime here. Maybe did commit a crime here. By saying explicitly, if i could clear him, i would have, the flip side of did not have the power constitutionally to pursue it through a trial and therefore it was unfair to make that public accusation. And shan, let me bring you in. Do you agree that the headline here is, President Trump likely committed a crime but i cannot charge him because of the legal guidance that sitting president s cannot be charged. Yes, i think he made it Crystal Clear that he could not charge trump. He thought it would be unconstitutional to do so. He was bound by that olc regulation. Office of Legal Counsel. Not an option we can consider. And since you cant take the president to court, that it would be unfair to the president. But he essentially said, here it
is. Heres ten counts of Potential Obstruction for those of you who do have that option. I didnt have it. I think thats the most important bit of daylight weve seen now between mueller and barr. Until today, we hadnt really heard exactly what mueller has to say about barrs contention that if you remember, barr said that if it wasnt for the olc, it didnt really matter. The olc guidance did not really matter in the decision that they did not bring any charges on obstruction. What mueller clearly said today is, that is the only reason why. And so i think that that is an important clarification for us to have heard today from Robert Muellers own mouth. You know, because, again, his friend, bill barr, has led us to believe that mueller told him, look, the olc guidance didnt really matter here. That, you know, we were just we just chose not to make a decision. And theres also a falsehood thats been put out by the white house, there have been several, obviously, but theres one that you cant obstruct an
investigation if there is no underlying crime. Obviously, many prosecutors have brought charges against individuals, including this department of Justice Roger stone currently facing charges. Right, even though they werent able to get proof of an underlying crime. And it seems very clear that mueller does not subscribe to that falsehood. He lays out the cases of obstruction and said, if we could have cleared the president , we would have. Exactly. What he did was repeat his findings in this report in a very succinct way. He didnt say, but for, explicitly, but for the olc opinion, i would have charged him, but he did say, because of the olc opinion, we didnt reach a decision. I think theres a little bit of a difference. But he also said, if we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. Exactly, exactly. Thats the other side of the same coin. Thats right. And he says, in addition to that, the process exists outside of the criminal indictment process for this to be resolved, which is exactly what he said in the report. I think he also said, we could not consider this. They couldnt even consider it. They couldnt even consider it because of the olc guidelines. Which also, by the way, might have its roots, him saying that, in the fact that there is this book by michael wolf that claims that he had written up charges, an indictment of the president , which muellers office says is not true in any way, shape, or form. Mueller today saying, we never even could consider such a thing, might have had something to do with that as well. I think thats an important thing for him to say, publicly, because thats what the democrats thats the biggest thing the democrats want to hear from him in a testimony. I think they want to hear, look, you know, could you tell us, did you draw up charges and someone told you you couldnt do it . Those are the Big Questions that i think people wanted to hear from him. And today he made explicitly clear that we could not even consider it because of the office of Legal Counsel. Because he said he accepts the Longstanding Department of Justice Policy that a sitting president of the United States cant be charged while in office. And as a result, they obviously did not file any formal charges against the president. And Gloria Borger, as we listened to this, clearly, what we just heard from the Special Counsel Robert Mueller will give the democrats in the House Of Representatives and maybe even more than one republican, we know theres at least one republican, this impetus to go forward now and formal lip launch impeachment proceedings. Yeah, i think. And to follow up what you all are saying, and to john kings point, Robert Muellers a company man. And first, what he did was he said what he had said to the president s attorneys privately, more than a year ago, which is, im not going to take on this Longstanding Department of Justice Policy, which says i cant indict a sitting president and charging the president with a crime was never anything we could consider. Then he went to the next point, which was, therefore, they didnt do it. But if you read Between The Lines, he made it completely
clear that if they could have done it, they would have done it, because they couldnt clear him. And you know, dana dana made that point. So he was, he was, i think, telling everybody, look at what im saying. I couldnt do it, because the law would not allow me to, but even if the law did not allow me to charge him, i still could not clear him and i am telling you that and it was also interesting to me that they probably investigated whether a president could be charged, even if kept under seal. Thats something that we hadnt really thought about before, but obviously, this team of lawyers looked into that. And said, well, maybe we cant charge him now, but we could keep it under seal and eventually when he leaves office, charge him. And the answer to that was also no. So he was bound by policy, he works for the department of justice, he works for the
Attorney General. And this is how he proceeded. But i do think he laid it out for the congress, wolf, to answer your question. And i think theyre going to take a look at this and say, okay, we really dont have to read Between The Lines here anymore. This policy kept him from indicting. And remember, mueller was criticized, you know, when youre an attorney, you either indict or you dont indict. You dont give this middle ground. Well, most lawyers are not bound bit office of Legal Counsel opinion, which says you can indict somebody youre looking into, and that is why he did it this way. So, i think he wanted to quash that criticism and let the congress know, you know, i would have if i could have. And the point to the point youre making, gloria, he said specifically, the Special Counsels office is part of the department of justice, and by regulation, his office was bound by the department policy. And he also suggested, without
talking about the house bringing up impeachment, that there was a way forward outside of the traditional criminal Justice System or the Justice Department. Thats right. And so i think he was saying, i couldnt, but you do what you need to do. And you know, jake, i remember early on in this, talking to all of the attorneys involved in this case, that mueller made it clear, very early on, that he was bound by this policy. That he was not going to go rogue. Hes not the kind of guy that does. That he wasnt going to go rogue and indict a sitting president , but he was criticized when he didnt do it. And i think this was his answer to that, which was, look, i would have done it, but i was bound by your policy at the department of justice. So maybe he was legislate barr know, in his own way, well, this policy kept me from doing my job. And sara murray, three things that he made very clear in the
body of we were told they were going to be substantial and substantiative and they were. One, this wasnt a witch hunt, despite what President Trump says. Two, my office has conducted itself with the highest integrity, unlike what President Trump says. Three, we did not clear the president of anything, unlike what President Trump says. Right. And i think the thing we have to remember is that this is a guy who hasnt spoken in two years. And he decided very carefully every sentence of those remarks that he was going to make in only ten minutes. And in those ten minutes, thats what he decided to cover. He wanted to make Crystal Clear that he was not exonerating the president , despite what Bill Barr May have said, and that there was an avenue to continue this inquiry and that that avenue was congress. The other thing that he said that i thought was interesting was this Election Interference was important. And it needed to be investigated. And thats an important thing to remember, is that bill barr is looking into the origins of this investigation. Bob mueller came out there and said, they tried to interfere in our election. This will continue. It needed to be investigated then and needs to be taken seriously now. And we dont know what bill
barr is going to come up with as part of his review. You know, hes hired some very seasoned people, some people with good reputations to do this investigation of the investigations. But it should be reminded to everyone that how this began is because of russian interference, russians efforts to, you know, hurt one candidate and help another one. Thats where this began. You know, a lot of people will focus on the dossier, a lot of people will focus on a Fisa Of Carter page and theyll say they were spying on a campaign. But at the beginning, this is all about what russia was doing and thats the first line of what muellers he made no mention of this new investigation that the Attorney General bill barr has launched an investigation into the investigation. Why this investigation was launched to begin with. And i bet you theres a reason why, wolf. I guess he believes that whatever facts will come out will come out. And if anybody made mistakes, that should be exposed. I dont think hes opposed to
essentially that, but i think the Political Part of this, which is coming from the white house and from republicans in congress, that this was an illegitimate investigation, its clearly not true. And. Just to kind of take this notion of this report being a road map a step further to include what we actually heard from Robert Muellers lips about the fact that he seems to think that the president committed a crime but he cant do anything about it, and this is your job, congress, the huge political debate that we have been discussing since the Mueller Report came out. The pressure that has been increasing on nancy pelosi from her caucus and from president ial candidates to start the Impeachment Inquiry, to hear from Robert Mueller, effectively saying, okay, go for it its going to only increase the pressure even more. You know, i just want to point out, john, i want you to weigh in, because we keep hearing from the president of the United States, no collusion, no obstruction, he keeps saying it over and over and over again. Thats clearly not what we heard from the Special Counsel. No, as weve been having this conversation the last few minutes, the Trump Campaign sent out a fundraising email with witch hunt in the first paragraph. This is not going to stop, which is why words from the Special Counsel are so important after no words for two years. A man who anybody except those in the president s inner orbit has impeccable integrity. 1000 was the vote in the United States senate when they extended his term in the fbi. The words were so important. Number one, and evan discussed this also, i do not question the Attorney Generals good faith. He didnt say, i agree with the Attorney General. He didnt say were fine. He said, I Dont Question his good faith. Its very clear that Robert Mueller has differences with the Attorney General. Hes just not saying hes a bad person or he deliberately did anything. Hes just made clear, I Dont Question his good faith. Implicit in that is, i dont agree with what he has said. And to the other point, the report is my testimony. The report is my testimony. We did not charge the president
because we could not p. Two smart lawyers at the table. If you read the second half of this report. If that were john doe or john king or sara murray or that wolf blitzer, that person would be charged with Obstruction Of Justice. Not wolf blitzer. I want to bring in jim sciutto right now. Jim, obviously, the beginning and the end of Special Counsel Robert Muellers conversations have to do specifically with the fact that russians attempted and succeeded in an interference campaign in the 2016 election. He says, russian Intelligence Officers who are part of the Russian Military launched a concerted attack on our political system. Thats how he began his remarks, and he ended it, with that there were multiple systemic attempts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every american. Here is a Special Counsel who has not spoken in public for two years since the start of this investigation. Takes a rare decision to do that and how does he use his voice . He contradicts the president on
two fundamental issues. One, as you note, jake, on interference in the election. He says this is something that deserves attention from every american. Thats not a message youve heard from the president on the significance of this. He also stated explicitly that this russian interference, which he called sophisticated, was designed and timed to damage a president ial candidate. That, of course, Hillary Clinton. Again, we have a sitting president who has downplayed both the effects or the existence of russian interference in the election. So here you have a Special Counsel taking his first moment in public to use some of those precious minutes of that first Public Statement to highlight the seriousness, the depth of this risk and this danger to american democracy that he makes clear still remains. The other point i would make, jake, is just on the issue that youve been talking about here, which is contradicting the president on that key question, and really contradicting bill barr on the key question of no obstruction, right . The president has ore perepeate
phrase. Bill barr misread the report to say, we didnt have the evidence, but the Special Counsel made clear, it wasnt the evidence that was the deciding factor, it was department of Justice Policy. That was in the report. We all read the report. We know it was in there. But clearly, as its been digested and spun in washington, there are players including the president who are taking something from the report that was not in the report. And again, he uses precious moments in his first public speech in two years on this to make clear, no, it was the policy that precluded an indictment. Thats remarkable to hear from a Robert Mueller at this moment in time. And also, let me bring Michael Zeldin. Its beyond the fact that President Trump might be the only senior person in the administration who hasnt fully acknowledged the idea that the russians interfered in the 2016 election. Beyond that, President Trump did not bring it up in his last
phone conversation with Vladimir Putin when they were discussing venezuela and other matters. He did not raise the subject that the russians are still doing this. And beyond that, rudy giuliani, the president s attorney told me that theres nothing necessarily wrong with getting information from the russians, depending on what it is. And it is because he thinks that the more you talk about that, the more it delegitimizes his election, and he just cannot tolerate that notion, that he was not legitimately elected, which he, of course, was. The thing that i think is important to note, too, is that i think mueller made an important point by saying, i couldnt indict him, constitutionally, by the olc opinion, but i could investigate him and preserve the evidence when the memories were fresh. And he has put that now in a box and its got a ribbon around it. And when the president leaves office, i think mueller is also saying to future prosecutors, when its donald trump, private
citizen, you may want to look at this then. So congress, you can look at it, future prosecutors, you may look at it, i couldnt look at it. And while i couldnt exonerate him, i didnt charge him. Justin amash you going to do it . Go ahead. Justin amash from michigan, republican, something of an outlier in the republican caucus, has been very critical of President Trump, especially on issues having to do with the constitution. Go ahead, dana. Well, it just says right there, the ball is in our court, congress. As you said, he is a lone gop voice. But jake, in addition to that, the house judiciary chairman, who has been trying to balance, not had an opinion on this question of whether or not to pursue impeachment, and thanks to conversations with the democratic leadership, he also just released a statement saying, at the end, it falls to congress to respond to the crime, lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump and we will do so. No one, not even the president
of the United States is above the law. He doesnt say, okay, Impeachment Inquiry coming. But thats leaning pretty far into the box around the democrats is getting smaller. The flexibility they have. If you heard from what bob mueller just said, too, i mean, he discussed the fact that there is underlying evidence and that theres a Process Being worked on with the Justice Department for congress to be able to access that. You notice, he didnt say, they shouldnt. He mentions. It and i think thats an important thing, also. I think congress should take those words and see it as encouragement that it is something that they should work on. I mean, there is now pregnacede thanks to President Trump and the republicans, the republican majority, right, in the last couple of years, to get access to fbi interviews, so now perhaps they can get taaccess t some of these interviews that were part of the obstruction inquiry. Were getting reaction now from the president of the United States. Abby phillip is over at the
white house. Clearly, hes using his favorite medium, namely twitter. Reporter and i think this is basically what folks expected. The president himself weighing in and basically saying, this is old news. He says, nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our country, a person is innocent. The case is closed and he ends, thank you. But as youve been discussing, what mueller really said was that there was a lot of evidence, but they could not, according to doj regulations, do anything with it. The president is spinning that into, there is insufficient evidence and he is therefore innocent. There was clearly no effort to charge the president , no trial, and mueller makes it clear the reason that there wasnt any sort of charge or trial was because, quite simply, they could not charge a sitting president. So i think this is what youre going to be hearing from the white house today. They are downplaying this totally by basically saying mueller didnt advance the ball in any way, did not provide any
additional evidence. But i think the question now turns to, did mueller punt the ball over to congress saying, we couldnt do anything, now its up to you. This is the other thing that President Trump has been very concerned about. He has been saying that the democrats just simply want to impeach me, just because they want to damage him politically. I think this is really going to put the spotlight on that issue of impeachment going forward. All right, abby phillip, thank you so much. A fairly restrained comment from President Trump, i would say. Insufficient evidence, therefore the case is closed, thank you. None of the mueller has conflicts of interest, he had 19 angry democrats, no all caps, no no collusion, no no obstruction. Thats coming later. That comment, the old news, nothing to see, case closed is the more traditional kind of white house response, one that perhaps the president would have benefited himself had he stuck with it the whole time. I suspect thats not going to be the last we hear. You cant rewind 200 years of
railing against the Special Counsel or two years feels like 200 two years of railing against the Special Counsel on twitter. But of course he says, the case is closed. Wouldnt anyone who is being investigated for a crime like to announce, the case is closed and were done here. Thats not what bob mueller said, he basically said, congress, over to you, and bill barr, the one who donald trump hand picked to put in that job said the case is closed. Robert mueller said, thats not our case to make. Over to you, congress. The one thing we have to remember, though, is he said his report is his testimony. Hes nothing saying anything today different than that. In his report se he hhe says, h not want to preempt congressional ability to look into this. He does not have the ability to charge. And he is not exonerating. Thats his testimony. So his testimony is his report. And i think we have to be
careful not to say what he said today is different than what he said in his report, because he said twice, this is my testimony. But he also said importantly, that there is a process that doesnt concern me, mueller, to get the underlying documents. And i think thats interesting, that he acknowledges that that is a process. But to jakes point about the president s tone, because that is different. Its very different to say, you know, theres insufficient evidence, therefore case closed. The president was watching this in the residence. I would be really interested to know who was around him. Just to tell him to tone it down. Because saying there was insufficient evidence is very different than saying, this was a deep state coup, it was illegal, everything they did is wrong and wicked and evil. Thats a very different tone. Now well see the president s mood and tone often changes on these things, but its really interesting that the first thing he says is a much more legalistic argument, lets move on, as opposed to the normal political, theyre all out to get me and its illegal and every bit of it is a crime
and shan, lets reiterate what i think theres some consensus that we agree is the most important sentence that Robert Mueller said today, the Special Counsel, quote, if we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. Thats a pretty damning thing for the Special Counsel to say. Absolutely. Huge emphasis on that point. And hes a man of so few words that the ones he utters takes on great significance. Also, to the whole road map point out, as John Points Out is in the report, he also chose to emphasize it was part of their charge to preserve the evidence while it was fresh. We did that. Its here for you. And that was another point emphasized that weve laid it out for you, its therefore for you to use. Could be for future prosecutors, but it also seems, he also emphasized the alternate process, not Criminal Investigation, which is obviously congress. He put those two together. It seems a Pretty Simple equation. Hes clearly sending a image to congress, now its up to you. You guys figure this out. Ive said what i have to say. Im not saying anything else. He may be subpoenaed. He may be forced to come up and testify before congress, but he clearly does not want to do so. Joining us on the phone right now is james classropper, the fr director of national intelligence, a cnn National Security analyst right now. So what was your reaction, General Clapper . Well, first, i thought it was, as has been noted, classic bob mueller, understate d but i think he clearly thought about every word. And ill just reinforce a point that jake made earlier. I think the most important thing he said was at the end, and that is about the russian interference in our election and the attempt to damage one of the candidates. And what an Important Message that is for the american people. I really resonate strongly about that, ive felt strongly about this ever since we did our Intelligence Community assessment about this and delivered to president obama on the fifth of January Of 2017 and President Elect trump the next
day. And i thought it was a very compelling but understated but compelling rebuttal of a lot of the attacks on him and his team and i thought in a gentle way, it was kind of a pushback on Attorney General, as well. Well, he made it clear that his conclusion, the conclusion of his investigators is exactly the same as the u. S. Intelligence community has concluded during the Obama Administration and even during the Trump Administration, that, a, the russians interfered, the initial goal was to sew dissent in the United States. The second goal was to embarrass and hurt Hillary Clinton in case he was selected president to weaken her as much as possible. But the third goal was to help donald trump, because they thought he would be better for russian than Hillary Clinton would be, even though they assumed Hillary Clinton would be elected. And he has reiterated that
position, which the Intelligence Community has stated, but the president , General Clapper, is reluctant to state himself. Yeah, exactly, wolf. And you have it exactly right. Three essential teams of that original Intelligence Community assessment, which, by the way, the current leadership of the Intelligence Community has reiterated on more than one occasion. And youre also quite right, and this is what is, i think, dangerous and disturbing, is the president s refusal to acknowledge that. And General Clapper, i was noting earlier, not only has the president not acknowledged it in a forthright way, that the russians attempted to interfere in the 2016 election, they tried to help him, they tried to hurt Hillary Clinton, theyre still going to try to interfere in the election. They did so, they tried in 2018, theyre going to try in 2020. But in a phone call with Vladimir Putin, he did not even raise the subject. And rudy giuliani, the president s attorney, at cnn,
told me in a state of the Union Interview that theres nothing necessarily wrong with accepting information from the russians, and to chuck todd he went so far as to say, even if that information was stolen. So one wonders if this happened in 2016 and the president and his team think theres nothing wrong with it, excluding his National Security officials and his intelligence officials, whats going to happen with in 2020 . Thats a great question, jake. I assume that the rest of the government will continue to do what it has done, at least my impression is to take measures to prevent a recurrence of what happened in 2016. And even in the absence of the president acknowledging it and worse, taking a leadership to do something about it. And thats whats missing here, theres a void here and ive long contended this, because of the unique bully pulpit that
only the president occupies to galvanize the american publics attention and concern about this, and i think muellers statement is yet another attempt to do that. Its just something all americans should think about. Thank you, General Clapper. We appreciate your time. I want to bring in cnns Gloria Borger right now. Gloria, a lot of responses coming in from capitol hill, from the white house, all over town. Yeah. And i cant emphasize enough, and weve all been talking about this, is that Thwhat Mueller Di without saying anything, in a way, that He Didnt Sort Of State in the report, is he said to jerry nadler and he said to nancy pelosi and he said to the democrats in congress, my hands were tied, but yours are not. You can do whatever you want to do, but i was bound and gagged. I could not indict the president of the United States. But you can follow up with what
youre going to do, whether its impeachment. He didnt mention the word, obviously, but he made it very clear, i think, that there were still other Things Congress could do. And in reading Jerry Nadlers statement, a couple of things are interesting to me. One is, he didnt say, were going to demand bob mueller come and testify. We, you know, bob mueller made it very clear, im sorry. Even if you had me up there, id effectively read from my report to you. So what would be the point of having me up there . I am not going to answer any hypotheticals, as he put it. And so its not going to be worth your time. So jerry nadler really did not address that. What he did say, what he did say is that if, you know, congress is going to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump and we will do so. So he was listening to bob mueller as well. And i wonder now whether, as john king was saying, the walls
are closing in on the leadership and theyre going to have to do something after mueller spoke. Yeah, clearly, the pressure now has intensified, i would say pretty dramatically in the aftermath of muellers statement that we just had on the democrats in the House Of Representatives, and they are the majority, to formally launch impeachment its interesting as you point out in the final statement from jerry nadler, given that Special Counsel mueller was unable to pursue criminal charges against the president , it falls to congress to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrong doing of President Trump and we will do so. No one, not even the president of the United States is above the law. Lets go to laura jared over at the Justice Department. She is getting more information, as well. Well, wolf, im told by a source familiar that in terms of looking at Whether Mueller wants to testify as you were speaking
about nadlers position, we should focus in on his words where he says my hope and my expectation is that this is the last you will hear from me meaning period. I do not want to testify in front of congress which is consistent with what we have been reporting over the last couple of weeks that he was concerned about being part of the political spectacle. He went on to say if the issue is forced i am not going to go beyond the four corners of this report. You see a lot of members of Congress Reacting to his Statement Today in front of the cameras. But in many ways, the statement tracks what he said in the report itself. He did not provide really any new evidence or conclusions today that we hadnt heard in that report. So i think it is just important to highlight that he wants to try to stick to the report. Separately, i wanted to highlight a little bit the issue that we had been talking about on the predominance of how much
the longStanding Guidance from the Justice Department on not indicting a sitting president really weighed on the Special Counsels team here and the difference between what theyre saying and what the Attorney General had said a couple weeks ago. We had the sound from the Attorney General bill barr announcing the closing of the investigation. I want to play for you what the Attorney General told me on that day. Mr. Attorney general, we dont have the report in hand. So could you explain for us the Special Counsels articulated reason for not reaching a decision on Obstruction Of Justice and if it had anything to do with the departments long Standing Guidance on not indicting a sitting president and disagreeing with legal theories. What did you disagree with him on . I leave it to his description in the report, the Special Counsels own articulation of
why he did not want to make a determination as to whether or not there was an obstruction offense. I will say when we met with him, Deputy Attorney general rosenstein and i met with him along with ed ocallahan who is the principle Associate Deputy on march 5, we specifically asked him about the olc opinion and whether or not he was taking the position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the olc opinion. And he made it very clear several times that that was not his position. He was not saying that but for the olc opinion he would have found a crime. He made it clear that he had not made the determination that there was a crime. Reporter so the key there obviously for barr is this but for sort of cause ality situation that he is setting up there. But it almost misses the point because as we heard from Mueller Today and as we saw in the report, the olc guidance, office of Legal Counsel really did weigh heavily on the Special Counsels team, so much so that they didnt even reach that question. Its almost as if it was irrelevant. As the Special Counsel articulated today, in his view, it would be unfair to try to even look at that question because you cant defend yourself in court since you cant indict him, but it also was unconstitutional. I wanted to highlight how almost barr and mueller are talking past each other on this issue. Appreciate it. Shan yu, if you listen to what the Attorney General general said in april and then put it up to next to what Robert Mueller said today, you can give him good faith or not, but it does
rnt sound like Attorney General barr represented accurately what Special Counsel mueller thinks. Bob mueller can give him good faith. I dont think i can. Misleading the way he parsed those words. His statement that his discussion with the representative from the Special Counsels office indicated that the office of Legal Counsel opinion did not prevent them from finding a crime is a red herring. Mueller says that opinion prevented them from even considering whether they could reach that conclusion. So barr carefully parsed that to make it sound like the olc opinion olc opinion had nothing to do with this. It completely stopped them from considering that path so very misleading. Also the idea that even without the olc opinion memo, Robert Mueller did not think that the president had committed any sort of crime. Thats Something Else that the
Attorney General suggested in his remarks. Also not supported by what Robert Mueller said today. He didnt find mueller evidence of an underlying crime. Underlying crime. Thats what barr said. Barr said Obstruction Of Justice typically you have an underlying crime, obstructive acts geared toward a particular tribunal. He said this is what barr said because there was no evidence of an underlying crime i in my discretion as Attorney General determine. Mueller said if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit Obstruction Of Justice, we would have said so. Based on the facts and applicable legal standards, however, we were unable to reach that judgment. Thats not exactly but for the legal opinion we would have. He is saying there are
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