Trump news: Mueller hints he was blocked from charging president with obstruction of justice in damning resignation speech
Special counsel says if his team could have cleared the president of a crime 'we would have said so'
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FBI special counsel Robert Mueller spoke out about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, saying Donald Trump could not have been charged due to Justice Department guidelines that bar indictments against a sitting president.
The special counsel focused most of his statement on Russia's sweeping interference operations, concluding his remarks by saying, "There were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American."
Mr Mueller declined to exonerate the president since he did not have enough evidence to clear him of a crime, the special counsel noted on Wednesday, which marked his first statement made directly to the public since beginning his investigation two years ago.
The special counsel made clear he believed he was restrained from indicting a sitting president — such an action was “not an option” — because of a Justice Department legal opinion. He did not use the word ‘impeachment” but said it was Congress’ job to hold the president accountable for any wrongdoing.
“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” he said. “We did not however make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”
Mueller investigation: The key figures
Show all 12The special counsel's statement largely echoed the central points of his 448-page report released last month with some redactions. But his remarks, just under 10 minutes long and delivered from a Justice Department podium, were nonetheless extraordinary given that he had never before discussed or characterised his findings and had stayed mute during two years of feverish public speculation.
Mr Mueller, a former FBI director, said his work was complete and he was resigning to return to private life. For his rare appearance, he wore a black suit, crisp white shirt and blue tie, walking briskly onto the stage gripping a folder containing prepared remarks that he largely adhered to.
His remarks underscored the unsettled resolution, and revelations of behind-the-scenes discontent, that accompanied the end of his investigation. Mr Mueller’s refusal to reach a conclusion on criminal obstruction opened the door for William Barr, the attorney general, to clear the president, who in turn has cited the attorney general’s finding as proof of his innocence.
Mr Mueller has privately vented to Mr Barr about his handling of the report, while Mr Barr has publicly said he was taken aback by the special counsel’s decision to neither exonerate nor incriminate the president.
Under pressure to testify before Congress, Mr Mueller did not rule it out. But he seemed to warn lawmakers that they would not be pulling more detail out of him. His report is “my testimony,” he said, and he won’t go beyond what is written in it.
“So beyond what I have said here today and what is contained in our written work,” Mr Mueller said, “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.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
An early copy of Siege: Trump under Fire, author Michael Wolff’s follow-up to his hit book Fire and Fury, reveals that FBI special counsel Robert Mueller drew up a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against the president but decided against publishing it.
The explosive claim, which a spokesman for Mueller has emphatically denied, is “based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel”, according to Wolff.
Mueller’s office drew up the outline of the president’s alleged abuses, under the title “United States of America against Donald J Trump, Defendant”. The document lay on the special counsel’s desk for almost a year, according to Wolff, before he ultimately decided to shelve it.
According to The Guardian, the first count, under Title 18, United States code, Section 1505, charged the president with corruptly influencing, obstructing or impeding a pending proceeding before a department or agency of the United States.
The second, under section 1512, charged him with tampering with a witness, victim or informant.
The third, under section 1513, charged the president with retaliating against a witness, victim or informant.
Mueller, a former FBI director and marine, was appointed in May 2017 to investigate Russian election hacking and possible collusion between Kremlin agents and Trump campaign staff.
After 22 months, multiple interviews and some $25m (£19.8m) spent, Mueller handed his final 448-page report to attorney general William Barr in March, who concluded it reached a "no collusion" verdict and dismissed the special counsel's 11 possible obstruction of justice charges as not worthy of further pursuit.
Here's more from Chris Riotta.
Wolff writes that Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice "began on the seventh day of his administration, tracing the line of obstruction from national security adviser Michael Flynn’s lies to the FBI about his contacts with Russian representative[s], to the president’s efforts to have [FBI director] James Comey protect Flynn, to Comey’s firing, to the president’s efforts to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation, to his attempt to cover up his son and son-in-law’s meeting with Russian governmental agents, to his moves to interfere with deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe’s testimony."
The draft indictment, Wolff says, spells out the "extraordinary lengths" Trump took "to protect himself from legal scrutiny and accountability, and to undermine the official panels investigating his actions".
Having written the document and wrestled with his conscience over the matter for months, Mueller ultimately demurred and put it to one side.
His spokesman Peter Carr's insistence to The Guardian that "The documents that you’ve described do not exist" leaves open the possibility they merely no longer exist, perhaps implying they did once but were destroyed.
Wolff concludes his work with this assessment of the investigator's thinking: “In a way, Robert Mueller had come to accept the dialectical premise of Donald Trump - that Trump is Trump.
"Bob Mueller threw up his hands. Surprisingly, he found himself in agreement with the greater White House: Donald Trump was the president, and, for better or for worse, what you saw was what you got - and what the country voted for."
Siege contains a number of other choice quotes, not least from Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart editor turned Trump strategist until his sacking in August 2017.
“Trump was vulnerable because for 40 years he had run what increasingly seemed to resemble a semi-criminal enterprise,” Wolff writes, before quoting Bannon: "I think we can drop the 'semi' part."
He also cites the populist huckster saying investigations into Trump's finances would threaten his ties to his white working class fan base: "This is where it isn’t a witch hunt - even for the hard core, this is where he turns into just a crooked business guy, and one worth $50m [£39.6m] instead of $10bn [£7.9bn]. Not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag."
Just another scumbag. And from Steve Bannon!
I'll leave that with you.
Arguably the most shocking revelation we've heard so far from Wolff's new tome is the remark he attributes to the president of the United States when he first heard of plea deals being agreed by his lawyer Michael Cohen, David Pecker of American Media (whose publications were accused of engaging in "catch and kill" practices to stop anti-Trump stories getting out) and Trump Organization accountant Allen Weisselberg in exchange for their co-operation.
"The Jews always flip".
A repellent thing to say by anyone, anywhere and at any time, but from Donald Trump, who has worked so hard to portray himself as a friend of Israel - relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and recognising the Golan Heights as Israeli territory - and who was so remorseless in his attacks on the "anti-Jewish" Democrats over Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's criticism of Israeli lobbying in Washington, well... The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Back from Japan, Trump has yet to respond to the news lines arising from Wolff's new book but I'm sure we can expect an angry rebuttal as soon as he sees off the jet lag.
Last night he was firefighting his decision to side with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over the latter's suggestion that Trump's 2020 rival Joe Biden was "a low IQ individual".
Trump was asked about the insult at a joint press conference with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and said: "He probably is, based on his record. I think I agree with him on that."
Fellow Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris all criticised his refusal to stand up for his fellow American as unpatriotic and disrespectful before Biden's campaign manager Kate Bedingfield commented:
Trump mounted a typically crass defence of his words on Twitter, still referring to his new nemesis "Sleepy Joe" and apparently seeing a meaningful distinction between "low IQ individual" and "low IQ idiot".
More significantly, Trump disagreed with his hosts in Japan over the importance of Pyongyang's continued short-range missile testing in apparent violation of UN Security Council resolutions, even after his own national security adviser, John Bolton, had said there was "no doubt" the rogue state had contravened them by carrying out the blasts.
"My people think it could have been a violation, as you know. I view it differently. Perhaps [Kim] wants to get attention, and perhaps not. Who knows? It doesn't matter," he said.
Abe had said he regarded such tests as a matter of "great regret" but when Trump was asked if he was concerned, he replied: "I’m not. I personally am not."
Particularly indignant about the president's shrugging apathy towards North Korean provocations was Anderson Cooper of CNN (see below).
Another keyboard warrior going after Trump is former FBI director James Comey, whose firing by Trump two years ago kickstarted the Russia investigation.
Writing in an op-ed for The Washington Post, Comey accuses the president of telling "dumb lies" about the bureau as a premise for attorney general William Barr's retaliatory investigation into anti-Trump bias at the heart of the Obama-era Justice Department, now that the Mueller report is seemingly done and dusted (without an unredacted version ever being put before the public or Mueller himself being given a platform to testify unmediated about his work).
"Go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must," Comey writes. "When those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup. Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances."
Comey - who has developed something of an eccentric social media presence in his wilderness years - wrote for The New York Times at the start of this month to say Trump "eats the souls" of the "accomplished people lacking inner strength" who find themselves drawn into his orbit.
Republican congressman Justin Amash won a standing ovation during a heated town hall event in Michigan, Grand Rapids, on Tuesday after he called for the impeachment of President Trump, but not without angering many right-wing voters within his constituency.
"I am confident if you read volume II [of the Mueller report], you will be appalled at much of the conduct," Amash told his audience on the same day he posted a lengthy Twitter thread outlining his conclusions. "I was appalled by it… And we can’t let conduct like that go unchecked."
There were numerous heated exchanges during the meeting, with some accusing Amash of "grandstanding", of carrying out a "smear attack" and seeking to further his career.
One woman, wearing a MAGA hat, asked him: "How can you become a Democrat when we voted for you as a Republican?"
Here's more from Harry Cockburn.
Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – his signature achievement as president so far – has had little effect on GDP growth or wages and is actually failing to pay for itself, an independent congressional think tank has found.
Despite Trump’s repeated claims the law would help workers by providing "rocket fuel" to the US economy, a report by the bipartisan Congressional Research Service showed it has in fact been more beneficial to investors, who have profited handsomely from a wave of corporate buybacks.
Here's more from Tom Embury-Dennis.
Further questions have been raised regarding security at Mar-a-Lago, the president's plush Florida golf resort where he spends so much of his time, after a teenager entered the property by a tunnel from the beach and wandered around freely before being stopped by Secret Service agents.
The incident, only now coming to light, actually took place late last November but, more recently, a Chinese woman carrying several electronic devices containing "malicious malware" was arrested on site after lying her way in by claiming she was there to use the swimming pool.
Here's Tom Batchelor's report.
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