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Donald Trump Jr. echoed his father Thursday after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released.
Attorney General William Barr held a press conference Thursday to discuss the 448-page report before its release. Barr outlined the key findings in the report and said investigators did not find evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. However, he revealed an account of how the president attempted to seize control of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and force out Mueller from leading the inquiry.
After Barr’s remarks — and before the report was released to the public — Trump tweeted a “Game of Thrones”-inspired image that read, “No Collusion. No Obstruction. For the haters and the radical left Democrats – Game Over.”
Trump Jr. echoed his father’s thoughts in a number of tweets.
“It’s so much fun hate-watching CNN right now. I don’t normally take joy in other people’s misery, but after the lies and discord they sowed for the past three years about my family and me I’ll make an exception today,” he wrote.
In another tweet, he simply wrote, “TOLD YA!!!”
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In the report, Mueller wrote that he believed prosecutors would be unlikely to meet the burden of proof to show that Trump Jr. and other participants in the highly scrutinized June 9 Trump Tower meeting “had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful.”
Mueller’s probe also did not find evidence they knew that foreign contributions to campaigns were illegal or other particulars of federal law.
“The investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban or the application of federal law to the relevant factual context,” the report read. “The government does not have strong evidence of surreptitious behavior or efforts at concealment at the time of the June 9 meeting.”
Trump Jr. helped set up the controversial meeting involving himself, Jared Kushner, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, among others.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News Politics
Conservative author Ben Shapiro said on Thursday that although special counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed embarrassing behavior on Trump’s part, none of it was criminal.
“My one-line takeaway: Trump and his campaign engaged in deeply embarrassing and immoral but non-criminal behavior,” Shapiro, an attorney and Harvard Law graduate, tweeted. “In attempting to avoid that embarrassment, Trump engaged in more deeply embarrassing and immoral but ultimately non-criminal behavior.”
Shapiro’s tweet came amid a wave of commentary surrounding the release of Mueller’s report, a highly-anticipated document that Attorney General William Barr prefaced with a controversial press conference on Thursday morning. As Barr noted, Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to accuse the president’s campaign of collusion with Russia.
Although Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discounted potential obstruction of justice charges, the Mueller report outlined 10 incidents related to that issue.
The report, for example, claimed the president directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to push for Mueller’s removal due to conflicts of interest.
While Shapiro didn’t mention any specific claims, he said the report’s findings followed a “pattern” in scandals surrounding Trump.
“Every Trump scandal follows this pattern,” Shapiro said. “It holds just as true for Stormy Daniels as it does for Russia and obstruction,” he added in reference to Trump’s alleged mistress who sued the president last year.
“Do something bad and embarrassing, then shield yourself with other bad and embarrassing behavior,” Shapiro said of Trump’s course of action.
According to Shapiro, Trump’s lack of malintent appeared to shield him from potential prosecution.
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“Absent provable corrupt intent to obstruct an ongoing investigation, rather than mere shouting at the walls and random anger directed at embarrassing revelations, a prosecution would fall flat,” Shapiro tweeted.
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The public was able to get its first detailed look at Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s bombshell report on his years-long investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election early Thursday.
Attorney General William Barr released the 448-page “limited” redacted document after giving a brief interpretation of the findings.
The major takeaway, according to Barr, was that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, the report also noted that while it didn’t conclude Trump committed a crime, it doesn’t formally “exonerate” him.
But there were some key details Barr previewed that constituents and lawmakers alike were eager to learn more about, particularly President Trump’s dialogue with campaign associates and the issue of obstruction of justice.
Although Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein didn’t find sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion on that front, the report listed 10 episodes related to the allegations that piqued public interest.
Here’s a look at some of the main highlights from the report:
No evidence of collusion
As stated in Attorney General Bill Barr’s summary last month, and reiterated again at his news conference Thursday morning, the special counsel did not find evidence of collusion with members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
“[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” the report said, though it noted there were “links” between the two.
Those links included several main points of communication between Trump campaign officials and people with ties to the Russian government.
Those communication points include: Russian officials reaching out to Trump’s foreign policy advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos; the campaign’s interactions with the D.C.-based think tank, the Center for the National Interest (CNI), whose president and CEO, Dimitri Simes, had “connections to the Russian government,” according to the report; and the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, senior adviser Jared Kushner and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The investigation further looked into the meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the week of the Republican National Convention and afterward; Manafort’s connections to Russia through his previous work for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine; and the Trump Tower Moscow Project.
According to the report, Mueller’s team looked into whether the campaign intended to work with Russia to interfere in the election, but “the investigation did not establish such coordination,” the report said.
‘Catalyst’ for Comey’s firing
Trump’s abrupt firing of former FBI Director James Comey allegedly stemmed from his refusal to tell the public the president wasn’t being investigated.
“Substantial evidence indicates that the catalyst for the president’s decision to fire Comey was Comey’s unwillingness to publicly state that the president was not personally under investigation, despite the president’s repeated requests that Comey make such an announcement,” the full statement reads.
In the following section, the report also notes that other evidence “indicates that the President wanted to protect himself from an investigation into his campaign.”
“The day after learning about the FBI’s interview of (Michael) Flynn, the President had a one-on-one dinner with Comey, against the advice of senior aides, and told Comey he needed Comey’s ‘loyalty.’ When the President later asked Comey for a second time to make public that he was not under investigation, he brought up loyalty again, saying ‘Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal, we had that thing, you know.’”
Though the report claims Trump “had a motive to put the FBI’s Russia investigation behind him,” the evidence “does not establish that the termination of Comey was designed to cover up a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russia,” it reads.
Shortly after firing Comey, Trump called the former head of the FBI “crazy” and a “real nut job.”
“The President also told the Russian Foreign Minister, ‘I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off ….. I’m not under investigation.’”
Former White House Counsel Don McGahn also urged Trump not to fire Comey and suggested he let Comey resign instead.
“McGahn and [Uttam] Dhillon urged the President to permit Comey to resign, but the President was adamant that he be fired,” the report reads.
Trump’s fiery reaction to Russia probe: ‘I’m f—ed’
Trump, after learning Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to lead the investigation, “slumped back in his chair and said, ‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f—ed,” according to the report.
The report continues to say Trump subsequently “lambasted” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions “for his decision to recuse from the investigation. The report states the president went on to say Sessions was “supposed to protect [him],’ or words to that effect.”
“Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me,” Trump added, according to the report.
“‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f—ed.'”
MUELLER REPORT REDACTION MEMES FLOOD TWITTER
Separately, after learning of the Special Counsel’s appointment, former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks “described the President as being extremely upset.”
“Hicks said that she had only seen the President like that one other time when the Access Hollywood tape came out during the campaign,” the report reads.
The report also allegedly found evidence Trump was “angered by both the existence of the Russia investigation and the public reporting that he was under investigation, which he knew was not true based on Comey’s representations.” The president also told his advisers if the public thought Russia had aided him in winning the 2016 presidential election, “it would detract from what he had accomplished,” it continues.
Trump’s call to McGahn
From the moment Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed, Trump complained Mueller had a conflict of interest, including being interviewed for the FBI director position, working for a law firm that represented people affiliated with the president and Mueller’s dispute of membership fees at a Trump golf course in Northern Virginia, according to the report.
The president’s advisers disputed those issues as conflicts of interest, but Trump continued to try to dismiss Mueller from the position. In June 2017, media reports were published saying that the president was under investigation and had obstructed justice. Publicly, the president tweeted criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel’s investigation, but privately he took more action.
On June 17, 2017, President Trump allegedly called White House counsel Don McGahn at his home and told him to call Sessions to say the special counsel had a conflict of interest and should be dismissed from the position.
“McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre,” the report said, in reference to the Watergate scandal.
McGahn resigned in August.
Sessions’ recusal, resignation
Trump’s rocky relationship with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was no secret.
The president publicly blasted Sessions, voicing his frustrations after the former Alabama senator recused himself from the Russia investigation in early 2017.
“I don’t have an attorney general. It’s very sad,” Trump previously tweeted.
Mueller’s lengthy report describes Trump’s fiery reaction to Sessions’ announcement that he would remove himself from the probe following revelations he didn’t immediately tell Congress he had spoken previously with Russia’s ambassador on two separate occasions. The president allegedly tried to convince Sessions to “unrecuse” himself despite suggestions it would be a conflict of interest.
“The President continued to raise the issue of Sessions’ recusal and, when he had the opportunity, he pulled Sessions aside and urged him to unrecuse. The President also told advisers that he wanted an Attorney General who would protect him, the way he perceived Robert Kennedy and Eric Holder to have protected their presidents,” the report states.
“The President made statements about being able to direct the course of criminal investigations, saying words to the effect of, ‘You’re telling me that Bobby and Jack didn’t talk about investigations? Or Obama didn’t tell Eric Holder who to investigate?’” it continued.
When Trump learned in May 2017 that Muller was approved as special counsel, he blamed Sessions.
“How could you let this happen, Jeff?” Trump asked, adding that Sessions had “let him down,” per the report.
The report indicates Trump then suggested Sessions should resign from his post. Sessions agreed, delivering his resignation letter to Trump in the Oval Office the next day.
Trump campaign’s ‘interest’ in hacked Wikileaks emails
The Trump campaign “showed interest” in stolen emails obtained by WikiLeaks — an anti-secrecy website — that belonged to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Democratic groups during the 2016 election, according to the report, which added Trump’s team “welcomed their potential damage” to the then-Democratic presidential nominee.
Around the time of WikiLeaks’ first email dump in July 2016, Trump allegedly said he hoped Russia would find emails “described as missing” from a private email server Clinton used when she was secretary of state.
“[Trump] later said he was speaking sarcastically,” the report added in parenthesis.
Sections regarding WikiLeaks were heavily redacted, citing “harm to ongoing matter.” The blackouts are potentially related to the recent arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was federally charged by the U.S. last week for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, and ongoing legal issues facing Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone. Stone has pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice, witness tampering and lying to Congress during the Russia probe.
WIKILEAKS FOUNDER JULIAN ASSANGE ARRESTED AFTER ECUADOR WITHDRAWS ASYLUM
Several Trump campaign aides, including Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Richard Gates, were said in the report to have “reacted with enthusiasm” to news of the email hacks.
The report is consistent with testimony Cohen provided in late February in which he alleges Stone phoned the President to warn him of the massive Democratic email release. Stone has repeatedly denied he had any communication with Assange and didn’t have any advance notice.
“There is no such evidence,” Stone told Fox News in a text message on Feb.15. Again, on Feb. 27, Stone said Cohen’s claims were “not true.”
Source: Fox News Politics
Donald Trump repeatedly pushed people affiliated with his presidential campaign, including Michael Flynn, to hunt down Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s private emails, according to the special counsel’s report released Thursday.
At a July 2016 campaign rally, Trump said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to emails Clinton said had been deleted from her private server.
TRUMP THOUGHT PRESIDENCY WAS OVER WHEN TOLD OF MUELLER’S APPOINTMENT: ‘THIS IS THE END…I’M F—ED’
According to an excerpt from the Mueller report, “Trump asked individuals affiliated with his Campaign to find the deleted Clinton emails. Michael Flynn, who would later serve as National Security Advisor in the Trump Administration – recalled that Trump made this request repeatedly, and Flynn subsequently contacted multiple people in an effort to obtain the emails.”
Among those Flynn contacted were Peter Smith, a veteran Republican operative and opposition researcher who raised at least $100,000 from donors to dig into Clinton’s emails.
Another person Flynn reached out to was Barbara Ledeen, a longtime Senate staffer who worked for Sen. Chuck Grassley while he was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
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Clinton’s emails have been at the center of controversy for years. Her lawyers claimed she deleted approximately 33,000 emails because they were personal and not government-work related. However, Republicans have long thought those emails were improperly deleted and have demanded they be disclosed to the public.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released Thursday. It showed investigators did not find evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia – as Attorney General Bill Barr declared last month – but revealed a host of controversial actions by the president that were investigated as part of the obstruction inquiry.
Fox News’ Cyd Upson contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News Politics
Democratic presidential candidates directed their ire toward Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday as they blasted the law enforcement chief’s handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report, including the press conference Barr held moments before the report’s release.
Many of the 2020 White House hopefuls accused Barr of mounting a defense of the Republican president ahead of potentially damaging revelations in the Mueller report.
MUELLER REPORT REVEALS BEHIND THE SCENES WHITE HOUSE DRAMA OVER SPECIAL COUNSEL PROBE
One Democratic presidential candidate, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, went a step further — calling on Barr to resign.
“The attorney general can represent the United States or he can be Donald Trump’s defense attorney. He can’t be both. And as we saw at this press conference today, the way that he mischaracterized the Mueller report, he is seeking to help Donald Trump. He should resign,” Swalwell told Fox News. “We need an attorney general who has credibility with the American people.”
Swalwell, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, argued that the report spotlights “glaring vulnerabilities in our democracy” due to “the fact that so many Russians were able to get so close to a campaign, a transition, and an administration.”
And Swalwell stressed that “it’s now Congress’s job to hold the president responsible and investigate this Mueller report and hear first from Mueller.”
Four of Swalwell’s higher-profile rivals for the Democratic nomination – Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York – all quickly called for Mueller to testify in front of Congress.
“Barr is acting more like Trump’s defense attorney than the nation’s Attorney General. His press conference was a stunt, filled with political spin and propaganda,” Harris wrote on Twitter.
“Americans deserve the unvarnished truth. We need Special Counsel Mueller to testify publicly in Congress.”
Klobuchar said in a video that “we want to hear from Director Mueller himself. Director Mueller should come to testify before the Judiciary Committee that I sit on.”’
“He should be able to give us his own views of what happened here so we can answer questions. He’s the one that conducted this major investigation and he’s the one – not Attorney General Barr – that should answer the questions of America,” the senator added.
Booker echoed those calls, saying on Twitter that “Mueller must testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as soon as possible. Congress & the American people need to hear directly from the person who authored the report.”
And Gillibrand, on Twitter, called for the release of the full, unredacted report.
“The Senate should hold public hearings on the investigation with major witnesses and Mueller should testify to his findings. And give Congress the full, unredacted report,” she urged.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, also took aim at Barr.
“It’s a disgrace to see an Attorney General acting as if he’s the personal attorney and publicist for the President of the United States,” she wrote on Twitter.
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Hours before Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released, concluding that there was no collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, Vladimir Putin’s official spokesman said the Kremlin had more important things to worry about.
“It is America that is looking forward to the report’s release, but we aren’t,” Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. “This is not an issue for us, it is not a thing that interests us or causes us concern.
READ THE ROBERT MUELLER REPORT
“All the reports on the matter that have been released so far contain nothing but cursory statements,” he continued, adding “We have more interesting and important things to do”.
Attorney General William Barr, held a press conference Thursday morning ahead of the release of the redacted report and repeated Mueller’s conclusions that the investigation found no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump campaign officials in the 2016 presidential election.
TRUMP DECLARES VICTORY AS MUELLER REPORT DROPS: ‘NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION’
The Mueller report confirmed that the Russian government did seek to interfere in the election, using a Russian troll farm to “sow social discord among American voters through disinformation and social media operations”. The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency also carried out an effort to “hack into computers and steal documents and emails from individuals affiliated with the Democratic Party and the presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton for the purpose of eventually publicizing those emails.”
These materials were then transferred to Wikileaks so they could be published.
Earlier this month, Putin dismissed the Mueller report as “complete nonsense”.
TRUMP THOUGHT PRESIDENCY WAS OVER WHEN TOLD OF MUELLER’S APPOINTMENT: ‘THIS IS THE END… I’M F—ED’
Earlier this month, Putin dismissed the Mueller report as “complete nonsense”. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
“It was clear for us from the start that it would end like this,” he told an audience in Saint Petersburg. “A mountain gave birth to a mouse.
“I’ve been telling you this all along. We said from the start that this infamous commission of Mr Mueller’s would not find anything because nobody knows this better than us. Russia did not meddle in any elections in the United States. There was no collusion, as Mr Mueller said, between Trump and Russia.”
Trump, for his part, said Thursday morning as the report dropped that “this should never happen to another president again.”
“I’m having a good day, too, it’s called ‘no collusion, no obstruction,’” he said in remarks for the Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride, at the White House. “There never was by the way, and there never will be.”
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“This should never happen to another president again, this hoax, it should never happen to another president again,” he added.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News World
The report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on the Russia meddling probe proves that President Donald Trump couldn’t be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, a former independent counsel said Thursday.
Fox News contributor Sol Wisenberg said that while parts of Mueller’s report were “very, very embarrassing” for Trump, it does not support an obstruction of justice charge.
“Well, I’ve read maybe about 30 or 40 pages of the 400 to 500-page report… I went straight to the obstruction part,” he said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
READ THE ROBERT MUELLER REPORT
Wisenberg, who served as Deputy Independent Counsel during the Whitewater and Clinton-Lewinsky investigations, concluded that nothing he saw in the report “comes close to any case law that I know that would support an obstruction of justice charge.”
“Nothing, in my view, and I’ve been very consistent on this, that comes close to criminal obstruction of justice,” he said. “Whether or not Congress wants to look at it as part of a political impeachment, that’s something different.”
WATCH: AG BARR SPARS WITH A REPORTER DURING NEWS CONFERENCE AHEAD OF MUELLER REPORT RELEASE
Wisenberg went on to praise the “brilliant strategy” by Trump’s attorneys to not have the president interviewed by Mueller’s team. He reiterated that it would have been “suicidal” for the administration had Trump been allowed to be interviewed.
“Not necessarily that they were trying to frame him, but it’s always dangerous for a person in a white collar investigation, who is at minimum a subject, to go in for that kind of questioning when the prosecutors know the case, top to bottom, backward and forwards,” he said, adding that while he did not agree with all of the tactics of Trump’s lawyers throughout the investigation, this was a “brilliant and tactical decision.”
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Mueller’s report, which was released late Thursday morning, notes that the special counsel could not clear Trump on obstruction of justice. Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided that the information laid out in the report showed no prosecutable obstruction by the president or his administration.
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Shortly after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report was released to Congress and the public, President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, reacted to the findings on“America’s Newsroom” saying: “This president has been treated totally unfairly.”
“We’re very, very happy,” he added. “I mean it’s a clear victory. I think any lawyer would say when you get a declination you just won.”
Giuliani said he read “every single page” of the nearly 500-page report on Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 presidential election. Giuliani said he started reading the report on Tuesday and had to go to a “secure room” in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) building to go through it. He said he wasn’t allowed to take the report out of the building or photograph it.
As stated in Attorney General William Barr’s summary last month, and reiterated again at his press conference Thursday morning, the special counsel did not find evidence of collusion with members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
“While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges,” the report said.
The version of the report that the Justice Department made public Thursday includes redactions, consistent with Barr’s plan to black out portions of the document—including grand jury material.
The report also dove into possible obstruction of justice allegations, while stating the special counsel did not make a traditional prosecutorial judgment regarding the president’s conduct on that front. The report noted that they obtained evidence about the president’s “actions and intent,” and that presented “difficult issues that would need to be resolved” if they were making a traditional judgment.
TRUMP BLASTS RUSSIA PROBE AS ‘HOAX’ AND ‘HARASSMENT’ AHEAD OF MUELLER REPORT RELEASE
“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the report stated.
Giuliani said: “This is a little strange because the special counsel has used a standard of proof that’s unheard of. He (Mueller) says he can’t be conclusively sure that the president didn’t commit obstruction, well you know, that means the president has to prove his innocence, which kind of upends 2,000 years of jurisprudence. But be that as it may, that’s the reason maybe why he was confused.”
He then referenced the second page of the Mueller report. “He says we can’t conclude the president committed a crime but we can’t exonerate him. Well, nobody is asking him to exonerate him. And the reality is that the overarching principle of obstruction law is very, very hard to make an obstruction case when there is no proof there is an underlying crime so you have to assume the president is innocent, which he is,” said Giuliani.
Giuliani added that he thinks “it would be good” if Mueller testified before Congress adding, “This all began as, ‘was there collusion with the Russians?’ And now we’re having an academic debate over obstruction of justice.”
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He went on to say: “The big victory is, no collusion with the Russians. I don’t think you could be any clearer, you can read that collusion 200 pages as much as you want. Believe me, I was up two nights going through it and you are not going to find a darn thing that shows that President Trump or anybody on his campaign had any kind of connection with whatever the Russians were doing.”
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Democrats have gone on the offensive following the release of the redacted report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Russian interference in the 2016 election – requesting Mueller to testify before Congress, slamming Justice Department officials for discussing the report with the White House before its public release and even calling on Attorney General William Barr to resign.
The redacted version of the Mueller report, which was released Thursday morning, was met by President Trump and Republicans as a vindication of his claims that there was no collusion between his 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government. But Democrats have slammed Barr’s handling of the report as a “staggering partisan effort” and highlighted Mueller’s reluctance to make a judgement on whether or not the president obstructed justice.
SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER’S RUSSIA PROBE REPORT RELEASED BY JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
“AG Barr has confirmed the staggering partisan effort by the Trump Admin to spin public’s view of the #MuellerReport – complete with acknowledgment that the Trump team received a sneak preview,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tweeted Thursday. “It’s more urgent than ever that Special Counsel Mueller testify before Congress.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-NY, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., both on Thursday requested Mueller testify before their respective committees. Both Democratic lawmakers in the past have been some of the most vociferous critics of Trump – with Schiff previously claiming that he has evidence of collusion between the president and Russia and Nadler’s committee recently voting to subpoena the full, unredacted Mueller report.
“The House Intelligence Committee has formally invited Special Counsel Mueller to testify on the counterintelligence investigation,” Schiff tweeted. “After a two year investigation, the public deserves the facts, not Attorney General Barr’s political spin.”
Nadler, who plans to hold a press conference in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, said it is “clear that the American people must hear from Special Counsel Robert Mueller in person to better understand his findings.”
Arguably the strongest reaction from a Democrat has come from Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, who called for Barr’s immediate resignation “given his misconduct regarding the full report.”
WATCH: AG BARR SPARS WITH A REPORTER DURING NEWS CONFERENCE AHEAD OF MUELLER REPORT RELEASE
“The attorney general can represent the United States, or he can be Donald Trump’s defense attorney. He can’t be both,” Swalwell told Fox News. “He is seeking to help Donald Trump. He should resign. We need an attorney general who has credibility with the American people.”
A number of Trump’s Democratic challengers in the 2020 presidential race have also weighed in on the redacted report.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., lambasted Barr in a series of tweets – accusing the attorney general of only looking out for Trump’s interest and “acting as if he’s the personal attorney and publicist for the President of the United States.”
“The AG is supposed to serve as the country’s top law enforcement officer – someone who stands up for the rule of law & defends the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic,” Warren tweeted. “William Barr is standing up for only one person: the President of the United States.”
Another 2020 Democratic candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also went after Barr, while urging Mueller to appear before Congress to testify on his report.
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“Attorney General Barr has made it clear he is not impartial when it comes to this investigation,” Klobuchar tweeted. “Now that we have the report we should hear from Robert Mueller himself in public hearings. Our democracy demands it.”
And then there is Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., whose main gripe so far was that the version of the Mueller report on the Justice Department website was unsearchable.
“The Trump administration posted an unsearchable pdf of the Mueller report so it would be harder for you to read,” Booker tweeted, before linking to a searchable version that his staff put together.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News Politics
President Trump has been celebrating the findings of Robert Mueller’s report, but he wasn’t quite as positive when the special counsel was first appointed.
According to Mueller’s report, which was released to the public on Thursday morning, Trump said his presidency was finished, going so far as to state he was “f—ed”, after being told of Mueller’s appointment by then-attorney general Jeff Sessions.
“According to notes written by (Sessions’ chief of staff Jody) Hunt, when Sessions told the President that a Special Counsel had been appointed, the President slumped back in his chair, and said, ‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f……’,” the report reads.
“The President became angry and lambasted the Attorney General for his decision to recuse from the investigation, stating, ‘How could you let this happen, Jeff?’
SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER’S RUSSIA PROBE REPORT RELEASED BY JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
“The President said the position of Attorney General was his most important appointment and that Sessions had ‘let (him) down,’ contrasting him with Eric Holder and Robert Kennedy. Sessions recalled that the President said to him, ‘you were supposed to protect me,’ or words to that effect.
The report continued: “The president returned to the consequences of the appointment and said, ‘Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worse thing that ever happened to me.’”
The version of Mueller’s 448-page report that the Justice Department made public Thursday includes redactions, consistent with Attorney General Bill Barr’s plan to black out portions of the document—including grand jury material, information the intelligence community believes would reveal intelligence sources and methods, any material that could interfere with ongoing prosecutions and information that could implicate the privacy or reputational interests of “peripheral players.”
Democrats, for weeks, demanded to see the full, unredacted report, and blasted Barr for resisting their requests.
CHAFFETZ ON RELEASE OF MUELLER REPORT: ‘DEMOCRATS ARE SCRAMBLING… I THINK IT’S PART OF THEIR DEMISE’
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has already vowed to move “very quickly” to issue subpoenas for the full report should he and his colleagues not be satisfied with the amount of, and basis for, redactions.
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The partisan warfare that has marked the probe from the start extended into the report’s release day, with Barr coming under fire from Democrats for his decision to hold a press conference in advance of the release. Barr already had come under fire from Democrats after he issued a four-page summary of the special counsel report, in which he stated there was no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 campaign.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson, Catherine Herridge and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
Source: Fox News Politics
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