Former FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller prompted a prosecutor to “take a serious look” at charging President Trump with obstruction of justice after he leaves office.
Mueller details 10 instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice in his 448-page report, but he declines to say either way whether Trump committed a crime, citing a Justice Department guideline that sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
During an interview with CBS, Comey criticized a four-page memo by Attorney General William Barr that preceded the release of Mueller’s report as “inadequate” and “misleading.” The four-page letter said the special counsel “determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment” and quotes Mueller writing that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
“It certainly gave the impression that Bob Mueller had decided that he was not going to rule on this question of obstruction of justice when that’s not what Mueller did,” Comey said on “CBS This Morning.” “Mueller laid it out and signaled to a future prosecutor after this individual is out of office you ought to take a serious look at charging him.”
Last week it was revealed that Mueller, in a letter, also objected to Barr’s March 24 memo because it “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the 22-month investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by Trump. Mueller called on Barr to alleviate public confusion by releasing the report’s introduction and executive summary for each volume.
During testimony last week, Barr acknowledged he and Mueller spoke on the phone after he received Mueller’s letter, but stressed that special counsel did not think he misrepresented the investigation’s findings.
