MUELLER SAYS TRUMP WAS NOT IN THE CLEAR ON OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Mueller says he could NOT charge Trump because it was unconstitutional and president could not get his day in court as special counsel breaks silence to say his work is over and he does NOT want to testify to Congress

Daily Mail
May 29, 2019

Robert Mueller ended a two-year silence in an eight-minute statement at the Department of Justice, resigning as special counsel with a dramatic intervention to say that Donald Trump was not charged with obstruction because it was ‘not an option.’

Mueller said his report ‘speaks for itself’ but for the first time went beyond its text to give his version of its findings. He said there was a ‘massive’ effort to disrupt the 2016 elections by Russians but ‘insufficient evidence’ to charge anyone with a ‘broader conspiracy’ – clearing Trump and his campaign of collusion.

But he said explicitly that Trump was not in the clear on obstruction of justice. ‘If there was confidence that the president did not commit a crime we would have said so,’ he said.

Department of Justice policy, he said, bans charging a sitting president, so his investigation never looked at whether Trump should be charged. “Under long standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office,” Mueller said. “That is unconstitutional.”

Mueller also said that if he is asked to testify in Congress he would not go beyond his report’s findings and analysis, a blow to Democrats who now have to consider their next move.

Mueller, 74, a Marine hero and former FBI director, said he is returning to private life.