Tag: Robert Mueller

Nadler says Mueller will not testify next week

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y) said Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller will not be testifying before his panel next week.

Nadler told reporters that the committee is still negotiating over his testimony with the Justice Department and Mueller but expects the special counsel to appear.

“It won’t be next week. We’re negotiating now,” Nadler said. “We’re talking with him and the Justice Department.”

View the complete May 10 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

With Mueller on Justice staff, Barr has sway over testimony

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller was expected to step down days after concluding his investigation in March. Yet he remains a Justice Department employee — and the department won’t say why.

That’s just one of the complications at play in the high-stakes, secret negotiations over whether Mueller will testify before Congress.

Whatever role Mueller now has, keeping him on the Justice Department payroll offers one clear advantage to President Donald Trump’s administration: It makes it easier for Attorney General William Barr to block Mueller from testifying before Congress.

View the complete May 6 article by Michael Balsamo and Jonathan LeMire on the Associated Press website here.

In reversal, Trump says Mueller ‘should not testify’ before Congress

President Trump said Sunday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should not testify before Congress, reversing course from his previous position that the decision is up to Attorney General William P. Barr.

“Bob Mueller should not testify,” Trump said in an afternoon tweet. “No redos for the Dems!”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

 · 

After spending more than $35,000,000 over a two year period, interviewing 500 people, using 18 Trump Hating Angry Democrats & 49 FBI Agents – all culminating in a more than 400 page Report showing NO COLLUSION – why would the Democrats in Congress now need Robert Mueller…….

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

….to testify. Are they looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion? There was no crime, except on the other side (incredibly not covered in the Report), and NO OBSTRUCTION. Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!

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Trump also insisted that Mueller’s 448-page report found “no collusion” and “no obstruction,” overstating the conclusions of the nearly two-year investigation. A redacted version of the document has been released; congressional Democrats are battling with Barr to get the full report.

In the report, Mueller’s team wrote that while the investigation established that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from” information stolen in Russia-backed efforts, it “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

View the complete May 5 article by Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

Barr puts Trump’s actions in best light, despite ‘substantial evidence’ of obstruction cited by Mueller

It was one of the most dramatic cases of potential obstruction of justice laid out by federal investigators: President Trump directing the top White House lawyer to seek the removal of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — and then later pushing him to deny the episode.

But Attorney General William P. Barr on Wednesday played down evidence that Trump sought to fire the head of the investigation bearing down on him, emphasizing in testimony before a Senate committee that the president may have had valid reasons for his actions.

It was a surprise recasting of the account of then-White House counsel Donald McGahn, who told investigators that Trump called him twice in June 2017 at home, pressuring him to intervene with the Justice Department to try to get Mueller removed. McGahn told federal investigators that he planned to resign rather than comply. And he said he later refused a demand by Trump that he write a letter denying news accounts of the episode.

View the complete May 1 article by Carol D. Leonnig on The Washington Post here.

Read the letter Mueller sent Bill Barr objecting to description of report

On March 27, special counsel Robert Mueller sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr objecting to his March 24 characterization of his report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Why it matters: Barr is about to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he is sure to be grilled about why he did not publicly release prepared summaries of the report, as Mueller requested. Some Democrats, who have already questioned Barr’s independence for his controversial rollout of the report, are calling on the attorney general to resign.

View the complete May 1 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here. The letter is embedded there.

Mueller expressed ‘frustration’ to Barr over lack of context in letter

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller expressed “frustration” to Attorney General William Barr in late March over the lack of context in the attorney general’s four-page memo describing his investigation’s findings.

Mueller “expressed frustration over the lack of context and the resulting media coverage” of his obstruction inquiry in a phone call following the release of Barr’s four-page letter, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement to The Hill.

Kupec said Barr called Mueller after receiving a letter in which, according to The Washington Post, the special counsel wrote that Barr’s March 24 memo did not “capture the context, nature, and substance” of his findings.

View the complete April 30 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Trump disputes finding that he directed McGahn to seek Mueller’s ouster

President Trump escalated tensions with his former top White House lawyer on Thursday, sharply questioning the credibility of one of the special counsel’s key witnesses as congressional Democrats seek his testimony.

In a morning tweet, Trump disputed that he had told Donald McGahn, then White House counsel, to pursue the firing of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III amid his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

That episode and others are included in a report released by Mueller last week that have prompted House Democrats to issue a subpoena for McGahn as they examine whether Trump sought to obstruct Mueller’s efforts.

View the complete April 25 article by Robert Costa and John Wagner on The Washington Post website here.

What Mueller Really Knows About Trump (And Russia)

Robert S. Mueller knows a great deal more than he put in his richly detailed 448-page report.

He says so again and again right in the report.

Two crucial words he put into the report at least eight times are messages to our Congress and the rest of us about how his investigation was hamstrung by rules from telling all that he and his team learned.

View the complete April 24 article by David Cay Johnston of the DC Report website  on the National Memo website here.

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.

End of Mueller shifts focus to existing probes

Special counsel Robert Mueller is finished investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, shifting the focus to cases spawned by his 22-month probe.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen’s campaign finance violations thanks to one of more than a dozen referrals Mueller made to other districts in the course of his investigation.

Prosecutors in Washington are eyeing a November trial for Roger Stone, a case Mueller passed off when he shuttered his probe after charging the former Trump ally with lying to Congress about his interactions with WikiLeaks. Prosecutors are also pursuing an active case against the people behind the Russian troll farm accused of meddling in the election. Mueller charged them more than a year ago.

View the complete April 20 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.