White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that former special counsel Robert Mueller is “moving on with his life” after resigning Wednesday and urged President Trump’s critics to follow.
“Mr. Mueller explicitly said that he has nothing to add beyond the report, and therefore, does not plan to testify before Congress,” Sanders said in a statement. “The report was clear — there was no collusion, no conspiracy — and the Department of Justice confirmed there was no obstruction. Special Counsel Mueller also stated that Attorney General Barr acted in good faith in his handling of the report. After two years, the Special Counsel is moving on with his life, and everyone else should do the same.”
Mueller told reporters in a 9-minute address Wednesday morning that his investigators operated on the legal theory that a sitting president could not be charged with a crime, and expressed his opposition to further public comments on his report, which was released with redactions last month.
“The report is my testimony,” Mueller said, addressing Democratic efforts to subpoena his testimony.
Mueller’s rare public remarks caught journalists by surprise, but administration officials said the White House was informed Tuesday evening of the address. Although TV crews braced for a possible Rose Garden rebuttal from Trump, Mueller’s brief statement yielded only a tweet, with Trump writing, “The case is closed!”
Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2019
Mueller’s report concluded there was no evidence of Trump conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election, but it analyzed 10 instances of Trump potentially obstructing justice during the investigation, including Trump allegedly instructing then-White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.
Although Mueller did not conclude whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, Attorney General William Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein assessed the evidence in the report to be insufficient to prove a crime occurred. Barr was in Alaska Wednesday meeting with native leaders when Mueller made his address.
Advocates for Trump’s impeachment described Mueller’s remarks as a call to action. His statement about being unable to charge a president with a crime means “the ball is in our court, Congress,” wrote Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich.
The ball is in our court, Congress. https://t.co/idpQo1xItH
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 29, 2019
Trump’s campaign sought to capitalize on Mueller’s remarks, however, with campaign chairman Brad Parscale saying that “it’s time to turn to the origins of the Russia hoax and get to the bottom of why the Trump campaign was spied on by the Obama-era DOJ and FBI. Anyone who is for transparency, constitutional civil liberties, and the rule of law should want to know why human sources, wiretapping, and unmasking were used to infiltrate a presidential campaign.”
