Robert Mueller appeared for less than fifteen minutes on Wednesday morning to give a statement that included the announcement that his office’s investigation was complete, that he was resigning from his position as special counsel, and that the special counsel office was to be closed. But Mueller did not restrict himself to providing a hat tip to his staff; he recapped his office’s report—and in the process emphasized the items that he thought were most important. In a way, this statement was Mueller’s own summary of the report.
Mueller opened his statement by making it clear that Russia had conducted two separate operations—the hacking and distribution of stolen materials, and a social media campaign—not just for the purpose of interfering in the election, but also “to interfere with a presidential candidate.”
When he moved on to discussing the report itself, Mueller critically did not use the word “collusion” or make any statement absolving Donald Trump or the Trump campaign, except to say that there was “insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.”
Then, moving on to obstruction, Mueller placed fresh emphasis on the actions that Trump took to interfere with the investigation. “If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.” Mueller elaborated on the fact that he could not consider charges against Trump entirely because of DOJ policy against charging a sitting executive. Because of that policy, he said, “we could not consider” charging Trump.
Mueller went out of his way to explain that the regulation prohibited him from indicting Trump, even if that indictment was not public or was under seal—which shows the lengths that the special counsel went in the search for a way to file an indictment. There would be no reason to mention any of this unless investigators had looked into the issues.
Mueller then made a special point of saying that the Constitution provides a way to deal with Trump’s crimes “outside the Department of Justice.” He may not have said the I-word, but he could not have shouted it any louder.
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