Tag: Mueller Report

3 things about Congress buried in the Mueller report

Chris Christie warned Trump firing Comey would erode his GOP support on Capitol Hill

From President Donald Trump’s signals to his former fixer about his upcoming — and false — congressional testimony to questions about whether senior administration officials committed perjury, Congress is repeatedly at the center of key parts of the Mueller report.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team, after poring over reams of documents and conducting hours upon hours of interviews, did not find that Trump tried to withhold information from congressional investigators. What’s more, the report repeatedly describes the president and top aides as concerned with the committees that were investigating them and collaborating on how to approach dealing with those panels. Continue reading “3 things about Congress buried in the Mueller report”

Barr to testify before Senate panel next week on Mueller report

Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify next Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on special counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation.

Barr, who released a redacted version of Mueller’s report on Russian interference last week, is slated to appear before the committee on May 1 at 10 a.m.

The appearance will give lawmakers an opportunity to grill Barr on Mueller’s findings as well as his handling of the special counsel’s final report. The attorney general is also expected to testify before the House Judiciary Committee the following day.

View the complete April 24 article by Morgan Chalfant and Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

Trump opposes aides’ testimony on Mueller report, ramping up feud with Democrats

House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House Counsel Don McGahn

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is opposed to current and former White House officials testifying before Congress about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House Counsel Don McGahn, whom Democrats describe as a potential star witness in their ongoing probes of all things Trump.

View the complete April 23 article byJohn T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Is Obstruction an Impeachable Offense? History Says Yes

WASHINGTON — President Trump has been consulting the Constitution. In a Twitter post on Monday, he recited part of Article II, Section 4, the provision that allows Congress to remove federal officials who commit “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Mr. Trump wrote that he had done none of those things: “There were no crimes by me (No Collusion, No Obstruction), so you can’t impeach.”

The president’s analysis had two shortcomings. It misstated the conclusion of the report issued by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which made no definitive judgment about whether Mr. Trump had violated criminal laws concerning obstruction of justice. And it failed to take account of what the framers meant by “other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

View the complete April 23 article by Adam Liptak on The New York Times website here.

Trump attacks media, says N.Y. Times should ‘beg for forgiveness’

After relative silence post-Mueller report, president explodes with two-hour Twitter rant

After days of media coverage describing the White House portrayed in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report as rife with dysfunction and ignored presidential orders, Donald Trump on Tuesday lambasted those who cover him.

He even suggested one of his top media targets, The New York Times, should “get down on their knees & beg for forgiveness.”

In one of his most explosive morning Twitter rants in months, the president went on an extended diatribe against the media that included mocking CNN and other outlets, and renewing his charge that MSNBC morning show host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP House member from Florida, is “psycho.”

View the complete April 23 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

What you missed in the Mueller report

POLITICO dived back into the report and its 2,000-plus footnotes to unearth a few details that have not gotten much attention.

Robert Mueller keeps on giving.

Dozens of overlooked nuggets are buried deep inside the special counsel’s 448-page report that raise yet more intriguing questions about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and shed new light on charges Mueller considered and dropped, who dished on the president, who evaded Mueller’s attempts to secure an interview, what happened to the FBI’s mysterious counterintelligence investigation and why a Russian Olympic weightlifter mistakenly ended up on the public radar.

That’s what happens when two-plus years of investigative work get distilled into a document consumed at the speed of Twitter — and where the sheer volume of news articles about the special counsel’s findings overloaded the most able multitaskers and the fastest speed-readers.

View the complete April 23 article by Darren Samuelsohn, Kyle Cheney and Natasha Bertrand on the Politico website here.

Unraveling Rudy Giuliani’s talking points on the Mueller report

“Any candidate in the whole world in America would take information, negative … Who says it’s even illegal? Who says it’s even illegal? … There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians. … And there were people on Hillary’s campaign that were talking to Ukrainians.”

— Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s attorney, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, April 21, 2019

“Is it a crime for an American campaign to consider information from a foreign source or to obtain it? If so the allegation that the DNC colluded with Ukrainian officials to generate information to hurt the Trump campaign and help the Clinton campaign must be investigated.”

— Giuliani, in a tweet, April 21

In the wake of the release of a redacted version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report, Trump attorney Giuliani offered a two-pronged defense: (a) There is nothing wrong with a campaign accepting negative information from a foreign government and (b) the Hillary Clinton campaign did something similar.

View the complete April 23 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Mueller Exposed Trump’s Biggest Betrayal

The most important line in the Mueller report appears in the introduction to Volume I: “The Russian government interfered with the 2016 election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” Our president’s response has fallen woefully short. And now we know why.

As with all things, Donald Trump made the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller all about him. But it is about so much more: our national security and the future of our democracy. Trump’s failure to protect our country from future attacks is his biggest betrayal.

Mueller has published a detailed accounting of Russia’s attack on our presidential election. His report describes how Russia conducted a social-media disinformation campaign and weaponized email messages to sabotage the election. Mueller’s description of the Russia attack makes it clear that information warfare is the new battleground.

View the complete April 22 article on the New York Magazine website here.

House Democrats start following Mueller’s leads as they investigate Trump

Immediate strategy is continuing their probes, but calls for impeachment growing in caucus

House Democrats are starting to follow leads laid out in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report as their own investigations into President Donald Trump continue.

The caucus held a conference call Monday evening in which the six committee chairs who are investigating various matters involving Trump updated members on their next steps now that Mueller has concluded his investigation. Details shared with Roll Call were provided by people on the call who were not authorized to publicly disclose contents of the private caucus discussion.

Not included among the Democrats’ next moves is beginning impeachment proceedings against Trump. But some rank-and-file members on the call expressed a desire to go down that path, despite Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging caution on impeachment in a “Dear Colleague” letter she sent earlier Monday.

View the complete April 22 article by Lindsey McPherson on The Roll Call website here.

Trump: ‘Nobody disobeys my orders’

President Donald Trump on Monday insisted that “nobody disobeys my orders,” apparently disputing that his former White House counsel twice refused to follow through on the president’s order to dismiss special counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump issued the declaration about his staff’s willingness to follow through on his commands during a brief exchange with reporters at the White House Easter egg roll. It was the first time the president has answered reporters’ questions since Mueller released his report last week.

Mueller’s 22-month probe found no evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin, but did not reach a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice. The redacted version of Mueller’s report revealed damaging information about Trump’s attempts to fire the special counsel — efforts Mueller suggested were halted by top aides who refused to carry out the president’s most drastic orders.

View the complete April 22 article by Katie Galioto on the Politico website here.