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Trump-Mueller report: President retreats to Mar-a-Lago as Democrats issue subpoenas and talk impeachment

Document paints damning picture of a White House torn apart by lies and mistrust

New York

,Tom Embury-Dennis

Friday 19 April 2019 21:08 BST

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Donald Trump says he's 'having a good day' following Mueller report release

Donald Trump has flown to his private resort in Florida for the Easter holiday, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill issue subpoenas and discuss impeachment proceedings in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

The president exploded on Twitter the morning after the report’s release to the public, calling statements included in the nearly 450-page document “bulls**t.”

“Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue,” he tweeted Friday. “Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed. Because I never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the ‘Report’ about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad).”

Meanwhile, the House Oversight Chairman has suggested the possibility of impeaching Donald Trump in the wake of the explosive Mueller report.

“A lot of people keep asking about the question of impeachment. We may very well come to that very soon,” Elijah Cummings said in an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Mueller investigation: The key figures

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1/12Mueller investigation: The key figures

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Robert Mueller is the special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, and potential obstruction of justice by the president. Mr Mueller has a pristine reputation in Washington, where he was previously in charge of the FBI. Throughout his investigation, he and his team have been notoriously tight lipped about what they know and where their investigation has led.

REUTERS

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Former FBI director James Comey was the catalyst that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Comey was fired by the president after Mr Trump reportedly asked him to drop his own Russia investigation. Mr Trump has long maintained that the investigation is a "witch hunt".

AFP/Getty Images

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had authority over the special counsel investigation for much of the two years it has been active. Mr Rosenstein found himself with that responsibility after then-attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself from that oversight.

AP

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Attorney general Jeff Sessions's decision to recuse himself from oversight of the special counsel investigation may have cost him his job in the end. Mr Sessions resigned last year, after weathering a contentious relationship with Donald Trump who vocally criticised his attorney general for taking a step back. Mr Sessions recused himself from the oversight citing longstanding Justice Department rules to not be involved in investigations overseeing campaigns that officials were apart of.

AP

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Attorney General William Barr is currently responsible for oversight of the special counsel investigation. Mr Barr's office will be the first to receive the Mueller report when it is finished. His office will then determine what portion or version of that report should be delivered to Congress, and also made public.

EPA

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Michal Cohn is the president's former personal lawyer, who has been helping the special counsel investigation as a part of a plea deal over financial crimes, and campaign finance crimes, he has pleaded guilty to. Among those crimes, Cohen admitted to facilitating $130,000 in hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. Cohen has said he did so at the direction of Mr Trump. Cohen has also admitted that he maintained contacts with Russian officials about a potential Trump real estate project in Moscow for months longer than Mr Trump and others admitted. The talks continued well into 2016 during the campaign, he has said.

AP

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Stormy Daniels has alleged that she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, soon after Melania Trump gave birth to Baron Trump. The accusation is of particular importance as a result of the $130,000 hush money payment she received to keep quiet about the affair during the 2016 campaign.

AP

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's former campaign chairman. Manafort was charged alongside Rick Gates for a slew of financial crimes, and was convicted on several counts in a Virginia court. He then pleaded guilty to separate charges filed in a Washington court. Manafort has been sentenced to just 7.5 years in prison for his crimes — in spite of recommendations from the special counsel's office for a much harsher sentence.

AP

Mueller investigation: The key figures

George Papadopoulos was one of the first individuals associated with the Trump campaign to be charged by the Mueller probe. He ultimately received a 14 day prison sentence for lying to investigators about contacts he had with Russian officials.

AP

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Roger Stone is a well known political fixer and operative, who has made a name for himself for some dirty tactics. He has been charged by the Mueller probe earlier this year, and he has been said to have had prior knowledge that WikiLeaks planned on publishing stolen emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016.

Getty Images

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Rick Gates was charged alongside former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for a range of crimes. Gates, who worked alongside Manafort for a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party. The two were charged with conspiracy and financial crimes. Gates pleaded guilty.

AP

Mueller investigation: The key figures

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was one of the first casualties of the Russia scandal, and was forced out of his position in the White House weeks after Donald Trump took office. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to "willfully" making fraudulent statements about contacts he had with Russian officials including former Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Flynn then lied to Vice President Mike Pence about that contact.

REUTERS

He added, “But right now, let’s make sure we understand what Mueller was doing, understand what [Attorney General William] Barr was doing, and see the report in an unredacted form, and all of the underlying documents.”

Mr Mueller laid out multiple episodes in which the president directed others to influence or curtail the Russia investigation after the special counsel’s appointment in May 2017.

The report says those efforts “were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests”.

The attorney general said on Thursday a version of the report with fewer redactions will be made available to a small group of lawmakers.

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He said all redactions would be removed from that version of the report except those relating to grand-jury information.

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Here's footage of Anderson Cooper's extraordinary interview with White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, who continues to claim Donald Trump does not lie, despite multiple instances of lying being laid out in the Mueller report.

Cooper eventually, exasperated, brings the segment to an apparently premature close.

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 09:31

Donald Trump yesterday tweeted a Game of Thrones-themed poster, claiming it was not 'Game Over' after the Mueller report cleared him of conspiring with Russia.

Now, HBO has responded to the tweet, with a spokesperson saying it would "prefer our intellectual property not be used for political purposes".

HBO has responded to Trump using a Game of Thrones meme againThe Independent'We can understand the enthusiasm for 'Game of Thrones'...'

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 09:36

Two Democratic-led Congressional committees have issued subpoenas to nine major banks as part of their investigations into Donald Trump’s finances, according to the latest reports.

Those banks include Deutsche Bank, which was previously reported to have received subpoenas from lawmakers surrounding the president’s financial records, and at least eight others, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Read more...

Nine major banks subpoenaed in probe into Trump’s financesTop Democrats say they are looking 'into allegations of potential foreign influence on the US political process'

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 09:44

Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the House judiciary committee, said his reading of the report shows that Donald Trump "almost certainly obstructed justice" and it was only his staff intervened to prevent certain actions.

"We have a very serious situation on our hands," he said. "It's an awesome and solemn responsibility that Congress has now to try to deal with the crisis that's contained in this report."

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 09:53

Rashida Tlaib, a freshman Democratic congresswoman, has filed an impeachment resolution against the president, which has won support from influential Democratic colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 09:55

The impeachment resolution is also supported by congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has born the brunt of relentless attacks from the president in recent weeks.

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 09:57

Another key takeaway from Robert Mueller's completed report:

Trump’s campaign ‘expected’ help from Russia but nobody conspired

The report concludes that Russia definitely interfered in the 2016 election, but there was no conspiring between those on Trump’s team and people connected to Russia – despite a number of “links” between individuals.

Here is what the report says: “[T]he investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 10:08

Opinion: For months Donald Trump and his White House staff appeared to be losing the information game over the Mueller Report.

At times last year not a week seemed to go by without a former member of Trump’s election team or those close to him facing indictments, guilty pleas or court cases as part of the probe or its connected investigations. It only seemed a matter of time, amid regular angry tweets about the probe from the president, before the president found himself in hot water.

But the Justice Department, and by extension the White House, has been able to take back control of the narrative in a way that seemed extremely unlikely a few weeks ago.

Read more...

Opinion: Barr has proved Trump now controls the Mueller narrative - no matter how hard Democrats tryCritics will rightly focus on Robert Mueller's 10 episodes of possible collusion but it will likely make little difference

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 10:12

Here's a key portion of Robert Mueller's report - on page 157 - in which investigators explain Donald Trump's acts which "were capable of exerting undue influence" over the investigation.

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 10:25

Here's footage of Sarah Sanders' interview with Sean Hannity, in which she addresses her false claim there were "countless" FBI agents pleased to see the firing of James Comey.

She then doubles down on the claim, saying it is "not untrue".

Tom.Embury-Dennis19 April 2019 10:29

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