Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III said Wednesday that his office could neither clear nor accuse President Trump of obstructing justice, leaving room for Congress to make a call where he would not and fueling impeachment demands among some Democrats.
In his first public remarks on the case since he concluded his investigation, Mueller said that if his office “had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” and noted that the Constitution “requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”
But if Mueller was trying to suggest that Democrats could initiate impeachment proceedings, he also seemed to dash any hopes they might have had that he would be their star witness, ready and willing to detail new and unflattering information his office had uncovered about Trump.