Below are the 10 most important takeaways
gleaned from Robert Mueller’s testimony before the House Judiciary and
Intelligence Committees on Wednesday.
Mueller said all he wanted to say in his report
When Mueller finally agreed to testify
before Congress – after more than two years of silence about the Russia
investigation – the special counsel said he ‘would not provide
information beyond that which is already public’ in the report published
in April.
He stuck to that promise throughout Wednesday’s hearing, declining or deferring nearly 200 questions from committee members.
Mueller’s reasons for not answering
included not wanting to speculate, being unable to detail internal
Justice Department deliberations and being under orders not to broach
specific topics.
Mueller didn’t subpoena Trump to avoid a lengthy court battle
The special counsel addressed why Trump
wasn’t interviewed during the two-year-long investigation when New York
Democratic Rep Sean Maloney asked him: ‘Why didn’t you subpoena the
president?’
Trump’s legal team had refused to have him
be interviewed in the probe because they felt such a meeting would
amount to a ‘perjury trap’.
Before Congress Mueller stated that his
team had ‘little success’ when pushing for an interview for over a year
and decided that they didn’t want to delay the investigation with a
lengthy court battle.
‘We did not want to exercise the subpoena
power because of the necessity of expediting the end of the
investigation,’ he said, adding that no one at the Justice Department
pressured him to finish the probe.
Mueller acknowledged that Trump’s written
answers to questions about possible conspiracy with Russia were ‘not as
useful as the interview would be’.
Trump was not exonerated by the Russia investigation
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler,
a New York Democrat, kicked off Wednesday’s proceedings by asking
Mueller directly if the Russia investigation exonerated President Trump.
‘No,’ Mueller stated without hesitation.
That goes against the president’s repeated claims that the probe proved there was ‘no obstruction, no collusion’.
The Mueller Hearings were an unmitigated disaster for Democrats
Mueller’s team never determined whether Trump committed a crime
While the majority of his answers were
straightforward and technical, Mueller struggled when questioned about
why he did not indict the president.
During an exchanged with California
Democratic Rep Ted Lieu, Mueller stated that the reason he did not even
consider indicting Trump on obstruction charges was because of guidance
from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel that a sitting president cannot
be indicted.
That goes against assertions by Attorney
General William Barr, who has repeatedly said the OLC’s opinion was not
the only reason Mueller did not indict Trump.
Arizona Republican Rep Debbie Lesko asked
Mueller to clarify that contradiction, at which point he said he ‘would
have to look closer at it’.
He later conceded that he had misspoken when he characterized the OLC’s guidance to Lieu.
‘We did not reach a determination as to whether the President committed a crime,’ he said.
‘Based on Justice Department policy and
principles of fairness, we decided we would not make a determination as
to whether the president committed a crime.’
Mueller was much less steady than in previous hearings
At times, Mueller, 74, stumbled during
answers, asking fast-talking lawmakers to repeat page citations and
repeat their questions. He sometimes had to scan the hearing room to
locate questioners.
Although his stock answer was to say
issues were beyond the purview of his mandate, he also appeared not to
recall specific information at times.
‘Where are you reading from?’ he asked one
member, Rep. James Sensenbrenner. ‘I am reading from my question,’ the
Wisconsin Republican lawmaker told him.
Under questioning by Republican Rep Steve
Chabot, Mueller didn’t show immediate familiarity with political
intelligence firm Fusion GPS, a key player in the trail of the Steele
Dossier, and a fixture of attention of President Trump and GOP critics
of the Mueller probe.
Viewers reacting on social media called
out Mueller’s unsteadiness early on, remarking that he was acting ‘like a
confused old man’.
Some said the wobbly performance could be a
delaying tactic on the part of the special counsel to frustrate
Republican committee members determined to discredit findings that are
damaging to Trump.
Trump was paying attention
After saying that he couldn’t be bothered
to watch Mueller’s testimony, President Trump made it clear that he was
tuned in as he tweeted multiple reactions to the proceedings on
Wednesday.
‘I’m not going to be watching Mueller
because you can’t take all those bites out of the apple,’ Trump told
reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. ‘We had no collusion, no
obstruction.’
Before the hearing even kicked off Trump
had posted seven tweets about the hearing, echoing his go-to attacks on
‘Mueller & his band of 18 Angry Democrats’.
Over the next eight hours tweeted and
retweeted 14 posts about Mueller’s testimony, including multiple videos
of Republican lawmakers grilling the special counsel.
‘TRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE!’ he declared just after 2.30pm.
Mueller and Trump have opposing accounts of what led up to special counsel appointment
Republicans probed Mueller’s professional
links with Trump in an attempt to show he may have had a reason to be
biased against the president – specifically questioning whether he was
turned down for the FBI director position the day before being tapped to
lead the Russia investigation.
Trump gave his version of events on
Wednesday morning, tweeting: ‘It has been reported that Robert Mueller
is saying that he did not apply and interview for the job of FBI
Director (and get turned down) the day before he was wrongfully
appointed Special Counsel.
‘Hope he doesn’t say that under oath in
that we have numerous witnesses to the interview, including the Vice
President of the United States!’
Mueller contradicted Trump’s account when Texas Republican Rep Louie Gohmert seized on his alleged conflicts of interest.
Gohmert asked Mueller about a meeting he
had with Trump the day before the special counsel appointment and
contended that it was a job interview for the FBI director slot.
Mueller stated that he was not interviewed ‘as a candidate’ for the position.
Mueller fiercely defended his team’s impartiality
The special counsel was calm and composed
throughout the proceedings, save for one moment when Florida Republican
Rep Greg Steube decried the political affiliations of the lawyers on his
team.
Mueller said never in his 25 years in his
position had he felt the need to ask the people he works with about
their political affiliation.
Rep Gohmert also called Mueller’s hiring
practices into question, particularly his appointment of FBI agent Peter
Strzok – who was later removed from the probe after he was found to
have sent anti-Trump text messages to a woman he was involved with.
Mueller said he did not know of Strzok’s
disdain for Trump before the probe started and learned about it in the
summer of 2017, several months into the investigation.
Republicans tried to collect evidence for a probe into Mueller’s investigation
Republicans committee members tried both
the blast the origins of the Russia probe and potentially establish a
record that might play out in an ongoing investigation overseen by
Attorney General William Barr.
‘Before you arrested [Trump campaign
foreign policy aide] George Papadopoulos in July of 2017, he was given
$10,000 in ash in Israel. Do you know who gave him that cash?’
California Rep Devin Nunes asked Mueller.
‘Again, that’s outside our … questions such as that should go to the FBI or the department,’ said Mueller.
‘But it involved your investigation,’ said Nunes.
‘It involved persons involved in my investigation,’ said Mueller.
Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow released a
statement saying: ‘This morning’s testimony exposed the troubling
deficiencies of the Special Counsel’s investigation. The testimony
revealed that this probe was conducted by a small group of
politically-biased prosecutors who, as hard as they tried, were unable
to establish either obstruction, conspiracy, or collusion between the
Trump campaign and Russia. It is also clear that the Special Counsel
conducted his two-year investigation unimpeded. The American people
understand that this issue is over. They also understand that the case
is closed.’
Democrats tried to breathe life into a dense, technical report
The Democrats, who hold a majority on both
committees, made a concerted effort to present the investigation’s
findings in a more provocative and damning light than they had been in
the dense, 337-page report.
‘Your investigation determined that the
Trump campaign — including Trump himself — knew that a foreign power was
intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling
into their strategy, and used it,’ California Rep Adam Schiff, the House
Intelligence Committee chair, said when the afternoon portion began.
‘Disloyalty to country. Those are strong
words, but how else are we to describe a presidential campaign which did
not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their
opponent, which did not publicly shun it, or turn it away, but which
instead invited it, encouraged it, and made full use of it?’ Schiff
continued.
‘That disloyalty may not have been
criminal. Constrained by uncooperative witnesses, the destruction of
documents and the use of encrypted communications, your team was not
able to establish each of the elements of the crime of conspiracy beyond
a reasonable doubt, so not a provable crime, in any event’, he added.
However, a levelheaded Mueller didn’t play along, making for a rather mundane hearing.
Reporting by Megan Sheets for DailyMail.com
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