Speaking the press for the first time yesterday, 74-year-old Robert Mueller said nothing about his 22-month investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and alleged collusion by 72-year-old President Donald Trump. Atty. Gen. William Barr said that Mueller’s 448-page final report could have concluded that the president committed no crimes, including conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Yet Mueller stated for the record that the Special Counsel could not make a determination whether Trump committed a crime, especially over obstruction. “I personally felt he [Mueller] could have reached a decision,” said 69-year-old Atty. Gen. William Barr, who, together with former Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, decided to not pursue criminal charges against the president. Barr couldn’t understand why Mueller didn’t reach a conclusion about Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice.
Mueller’s team of 23 FBI career prosecutors did not reach any conclusion on whether or not Trump obstructed justice. ”The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office,” Barr explained. “But he could’ve reached as decision whether it was criminal activity, but he had his reasons for not doing it, which he explained,” said Barr. Refusing to pass judgment on obstruction, Mueller created feeding frenzy on Capitol Hill and in the media calling for Trump’s impeachment. But if you ask any Democrat or member of the press, they can’t explain Trump’s high-crimes-and-misdemeanors calling for his impeachment. Finding no collusion, the underlying crime charged by Democrats and the press, how can any Congressional committee move to impeach the president? Talking about stopping the investigation is not a crime, if no action were taken.
Once Mueller turned over his report March 22, Barr, Rosenstein and team of career DOJ attorneys determined there was insufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. While Mueller’s 448-page report exposed instances of Trump asking his counsel Don McGahan to ask Rosenstein to fire Mueller, it never happened, making it a moot point. Even Trump’s May 9, 2017 decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey was not seen by legal experts as obstruction. Most legal experts, including Comey, believe Trump had a right under Article 2 to fire Comey for whatever reason. Democrat-led Congressional committees, including Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Intel Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Oversight Chairman Elijiah Cummings (D-Md.), have no more information about charging Trump with obstruction than Mueller’s Special Counsel office.
Democrat presidential hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), insist that the House should go ahead with impeachment based on the Mueller Report. Yet the Mueller Report reaches no conclusions about obstruction, essentially saying there was insufficient evidence to charge and certainly to convict. “I am not going to argue about those reasons but when he didn’t make a decision, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I felt it was necessary for us as head of the Department to reach that decision,” Barr said, referring to the decision to not charge or recommend charging Trump with obstruction. Suggesting that there’s compelling evidence in the Mueller Report to charge Trump with obstruction is factually incorrect, begging the question of on what basis would Democrats initiate articles of impeachment or an inquiry.
Mueller stated emphatically yesterday at his announcement that he could not reach any conclusion about obstruction of justice. When a federal prosecutor reaches that conclusion, then there are no charges filed, nor is a defendant typically named. Yet Trump has been named when the government cannot prove its case beyond-a-reasonable-doubt. “We concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime,” Mueller said. “That is the office’s final position.” Congressional Democrats have far less information than Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation into alleged Trump collusion and obstruction of justice. If the Special Counsel can’t prove their case with the best available evidence, then they drop the charges, not make referrals to Congress. How Congress thinks Mueller referred the obstruction issue to Congress is anyone’s guess.
Looking for any mixed signal in Mueller’s words, partisan Democrats have nothing on which to proceed with obstruction in Congressional committees. Mueller made clear he retired from the Justice Department and shut down the Special Counsel’s 22-month, $40 million probe. “The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse the president of wrongdoing,” Mueller said, washing his hands of the criminal probe. Mueller did not say he was referring the matter to partisan Democrats to continue investigating the president. From the Special Counsel’s position, Mueller made clear there were no criminal charges, not because a sitting president could not be charged. Listening to House Democrats you’d think that Mueller asked them to continue the criminal probe: He did not. That’s why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants to avoid impeachment.
