Robert Mueller gave a “correction” to his morning testimony about the special counsel office’s reasoning behind not charging President Trump.
In his second hearing of the day before the House Intelligence Committee, Mueller walked back what he said in response to a Democratic congressman on the Judiciary Committee hours earlier.
“Now, before we go to questions, I want to add a correction to my testimony this morning,” Mueller said Wednesday afternoon. “I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu who said, and I quote, ‘You didn’t charge the president because of the OLC opinion.’”
Mueller, who had agreed with Rep. Ted Lieu in the first hearing, said he now disagreed with that framing.
“That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller said. “As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”
[Related: Mueller unfamiliar with key parts of own report]
In his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Mueller caused confusion when he appeared to contradict Attorney General William Barr and declined to stand by a previous official statement from his own special counsel’s office regarding the decision-making behind not charging Trump with any crimes as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Lieu asked him, “I’d like to ask you the reason, again, you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?”
“That is correct,” Mueller said in reply.
Mueller’s report did not reach a determination on obstruction of justice in his 448-page report, although he laid out 10 possible instances of obstruction. Mueller’s report referenced a longtime Office of Legal Counsel opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted, but his report did not explicitly claim that that was the only reason Trump wasn’t charged in the investigation. Moreover, Barr said in April that Mueller told him that Mueller was not saying that he would have charged Trump with a crime but for the Office of Legal Counsel opinion and, in addition, a joint statement from the offices of Mueller and Barr in May reiterated that point.
But Wednesday morning, Mueller reversed course, saying that he would have charged Trump with a crime if not for the Office of Legal Counsel opinion.
Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona pressed him on this after his comments to Lieu, saying “that is not what you said in the report and that is not what you told Attorney General Barr.” Lesko also pointed to the joint statement he put out earlier this year, saying there was no daylight between himself and Barr on that issue. She quoted from that statement, reading, “The attorney general has previously stated that the special counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that, but for the OLC opinion, he would have found the president obstructed justice.”
“So, Mr. Mueller, do you stand by your joint statement that you issued on May 29th as you sit here today?” Lesko asked. Mueller declined to stand by the official statement from his own office from less than two months ago.
“I would have to look at it more closely before I said I agree with it,” Mueller said.
“My conclusion is that what you told Mr. Lieu really contradicts what you said in the report and what you said apparently repeatedly to Attorney General Barr,” Lesko replied. “And then, you issued a joint statement on May 29.”
Lesko was referencing a nearly identical controversy which took place following Mueller’s press conference in late May.
“The special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” Mueller said at that time. “The department’s written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation.”
After Mueller’s roughly nine-minute statement, politicians, pundits, and journalists interpreted Mueller’s remarks as a clear break from what Barr stated, suggesting that Mueller was saying that the only reason he didn’t charge Trump was the Office of Legal Counsel opinion.
But Barr said in April that he and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein met with Mueller in early March and that they “specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion.”
“And he made it very clear several times that that was not his position,” Barr said in April. “He was not saying that but for the OLC opinion, he would have found a crime. He made it clear that he had not made the determination that there was a crime.”
Barr and Rosenstein concluded that obstruction had not occurred.
After the May press conference, the Justice Department and the Office of Special Counsel put on a united front that was intended to end speculation that Mueller contradicted Barr on the decision-making on whether Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice during his public address.
“The Attorney General has previously stated that the Special Counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that, but for the OLC opinion, he would have found the President obstructed justice. The Special Counsel’s report and his statement today made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination — one way or the other — about whether the President committed a crime. There is no conflict between these statements,” a joint statement from Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec and Mueller spokesman Peter Carr said at the time.
