Mueller says he 'generally' agrees with sentiment that Trump officials lies inhibited his investigation
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Robert Mueller, the former US special counsel who investigated the Russian interference into the 2016 presidential campaign and Donald Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, has testified on Capital Hill, where he was asked to explain the conclusions he reached in his report released earlier this year.
The whole world was watching, and Democrats skilfully laid out the various ways in which Mr Mueller's report shows the president obstructed justice by trying to end the Mueller report.
They said they had 10 to list, in all.
Mr Trump had repeatedly attempted to downplay or dismiss Mr Mueller’s reluctant appearance on Capitol Hill — which was forced through a subpoena — to discuss his 448-page report into the 2016 election and its aftermath, but has attacked Mr Mueller's testimony anyhow, and has claimed Mr Mueller may have been conflicted because he had interviewed for a job as FBI director just before getting his job as special counsel (Mr Mueller had done that job before, had been praised for his work in that job, and denied he had interviewed for that job as the president says).
During the first half of his testimony, Mr Mueller indicated that a major reason the president was not charged was that Justice Department rules prohibit it. Mr Mueller did note that he believes a president could be charged with a crime after leaving office.
Mueller investigation: The key figures
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In the end, Democrats appeared to be laying the groundwork for further investigations into Mr Trump's political world, with top leaders pledging to follow the money trail to determine if the president had acted unlawfully.
And, with the future in mind, Democrats repeatedly asked Mr Mueller if the president could be charged with a crime once he leaves office. They said he could.
"I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear it is," Mr Mueller said when asked if campaigns will feel free in the future now to meet with hostile foreign governments during election seasons.
Mr Mueller said his team attempted for over a year to interview the president, but: "We had little success in pushing to get the interview of the president, we decided that we did not want to exercise the subpoena powers because of the necessity of expediting the end of the investigation."
"The expectation was that if we did subpoena the president, he would fight the subpoena," he said.
Mr Mueller says there is "a balance" when asked if he had sufficient evidence to charge the president with intent to obstruct justice.
He says they had to determine what to do based upon the time he had, and how long it would likely take to fight Mr Trump in court for a subpoena.
"The reason we didn't do the interview was because of the length of time it would take to resolve the issues" related to the in-person interview, he says.
One of the interesting things Mr Mueller has done today is not answer plenty of questions you might expect to be easy hits. For example: when asked if the president is credible, Mr Mueller said, "I can't answer that question."
Here's the president's personal lawyer touting the same line — which is not completely true — that the Mueller report said that it could not conclude Mr Trump obstructed justice. It actually said that they determined not to make a decision on that.
Mr Mueller says that acting unethically leaves individuals open to compromise from foreign powers, when asked. He notes it can be of a financial nature, or of deception.
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