The only newsworthy item in this morning’s #MuellerTime just evaporated, thanks to Robert Mueller himself. During his testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee, the former special counsel clarified a conversation he had with Ted Lieu during his previous hearing with the House Judiciary Committee.
Mueller said:
Although Mueller has continually maintained that he would not answer the obstruction question, Lieu came the closest to getting Mueller to concede that, absent the Office of Legal Counsel precedent that protects sitting presidents from criminal charges, the former special counsel would have pressed obstruction charges against President Trump.
The California representative got Mueller to agree that Trump committed the three separate steps required of criminal obstruction of justice, though Mueller noted that he didn’t necessarily agree with Lieu’s conclusion. Then he got Mueller to respond in the affirmative to the statement, “You didn’t charge the president because of the OLC opinion.”
Plenty of folks interpreted that as: If Trump weren’t president, we would have charged him.
Mueller just made it clear that’s not how he meant it.
(Mueller’s occasional sloppiness around why he decided to punt the obstruction question to Attorney General William Barr indicates that on some personal level, he didn’t want to make a political decision by proxy, as saying that he had the probable cause to press obstruction charges but didn’t only because of the OLC would have given Democrats the green light to initiate impeachment proceedings.)
But Mueller’s remarks to the Intelligence Committee gave a clear sign that he will not let Democrats use his words, implied or otherwise, to determine the impeachment question. As for whether they have enough evidence to make the case that Trump did obstruct justice, that’s solely up for Congress to decide.
