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Robert Mueller went before the House Judiciary Committee this morning to talk in detail about “The Mueller Report” that was released earlier this year. This hearing lasted long past the expected end time, having started at 8:30 am.
Each member had 5 minutes to ask Mueller questions before yielding the floor to the next member.
Mueller appeared drawn, exhausted, and frazzled as he fended off questions. By 11:30 am he had already referred members of congress to his report over 110 times, refusing to elaborate more than what was already written.
The biggest takeaway? His discussion with Rep. Ted Lieu, who asked whether President Trump would be indicted if he was not the president. He responded with a pretty clear affirmation, however, he warned to not read too much into the statement – he is answering questions to the best of his ability, and you can interpret those answers as you wish.
The OLC states that the prosecutor of a case cannot bring charges against a sitting president, but the investigation can continue on him and those he is connected with. When Lieu asked “…that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?”, Mueller responded with, “That is correct.”
The clear implication is that anyone else would have seen an indictment for their actions.
Mueller also said clearly that Trump was not exonerated, and could still face charges after he leaves the office. He told Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner that it was not the role of special counsel to “assess impeachable conduct”.
He also shared that his office attempted to secure an interview with the President for over a year, but he refused the meeting. President Trump had no intentions of interviewing with Mueller in regards to his Russian contacts or interference
On May 17th, 2017, special prosecutor Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate any and all Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election. Before Mueller was appointed, FBI Director James Comey was handling the investigation.
It only took 8 days from the time Comey was dismissed by President Trump for Mueller to be appointed to dig deeper. Before it was called the Russian Probe or Mueller Probe, the FBI used to codename Crossfire Hurricane.
On April 18th, 2019, a redacted version of the report was released to the public.
34 people and 2 companies have been indicted directly in connection to the investigation, and 8 have pleaded guilty or have already been convicted of felonies. 5 of those have been Trump associates or people that directly worked on his campaign.
