Former special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday dismissed US President Donald Trump’s claims of “total exoneration” in a federal probe into possible Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
In congressional testimony, Mueller said that Moscow’s actions still represent a great threat to US democracy.
Mueller’s back-to-back Capitol Hill appearances, his first since wrapping up his two-year Russia probe, carried the prospect of a climax to the investigation.
Photo: Reuters
However, his testimony was more likely to reinforce rather than reshape hardened public opinions on calls for Trump’s impeachment.
With his terse, one-word answers, and a sometimes stilted and halting manner, Mueller made clear his desire to avoid the partisan fray and the deep political divisions roiling the US Congress and the nation.
He delivered neither crisp TV sound bites to fuel a Democratic impeachment push nor comfort to Republicans striving to undermine his investigation’s credibility.
Photo: Reuters
However, his comments grew more animated by the afternoon, when he sounded the alarm on the possibility of future Russian election interference.
He said he feared a new normal of political campaigns accepting foreign help.
He criticized Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks, which released Democratic e-mails reportedly stolen by Russian agents.
He said of the alleged interference by Russians and others: “They are doing it as we sit here and they expect to do it during the next campaign.”
His report, he said, should live on after him and his team.
“We spent substantial time assuring the integrity of the report, understanding that it would be our living message to those who come after us, but it also is a signal, a flag to those of us who have some responsibility in this area to exercise those responsibilities swiftly and don’t let this problem continue to linger as it has over so many years,” Mueller said.
Trump said that “this was a devastating day for the Democrats.”
“The Democrats had nothing and now they have less than nothing,” he said.
Mueller was reluctant to stray beyond his lengthy written report, but that did not stop Republicans and Democrats from laboring to extract new details.
Trump’s allies tried to cast the former special counsel and his prosecutors as politically motivated. They referred repeatedly to what they said was an improper opening of the investigation.
Democrats sought to emphasize the most incendiary findings of Mueller’s 448-page report and weaken Trump’s re-election prospects in ways Mueller’s book-length report did not.
They hoped that even if his testimony did not inspire impeachment demands — US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made clear she will not pursue impeachment — Mueller could nonetheless unambiguously spell out questionable, norm-shattering actions by the president.
The prosecutor, who endured nearly seven hours of hearings, was a less forceful public presence than the man who steered the FBI through the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and the 12 years after that.
However, Mueller, 74, was nonetheless skilled enough in the ways of Washington to avoid being goaded into leading questions he did not want to answer.
Mueller frequently gave single-word answers to questions, even when given opportunities to crystallize allegations of obstruction of justice against the president. He referred time and again to the wording in his report.
Was the president lying when he said he had no business ties to Russia?
“I’m not going to go into the details of the report along those lines,” Mueller said.
Did you develop any sort of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia?
“Again,” Mueller said, “I pass on answering.”
He was unflinching on critical matters, showing flashes of personality and emotion.
In the opening minutes of the House Committee on the Judiciary hearing, Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, asked about Trump’s multiple claims of vindication by the investigation.
“And what about total exoneration? Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” Nadler asked.
“No,” Mueller said.
When US Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, asked: “Your investigation is not a witch hunt, is it?”
“It is not a witch hunt,” Mueller said.
He gave Democrats a flicker of hope when he told Representative Ted Lieu (劉雲平) that he did not charge Trump because of a US Department of Justice legal opinion that says sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
That statement cheered Democrats who understood him to be suggesting he might have otherwise have recommended prosecution on the strength of the evidence.
However, Mueller later walked back that exchange, saying: “We did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”
His team never started the process of evaluating whether to charge Trump, he said.
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