Trump sought to obstruct Mueller — but White House aides wouldn’t do it, report finds yhoo.it/2GtscaW via @Isikoff
Attorney General William Barr released a redacted version of Robert Mueller's report, Trump tweeted "No Collusion"; George Conway urged Congress to impeach President and Democrat House asked Mueller be testified
VietPress USA (April 18, 2019): Today on Thursday, April 18, 2019, Attorney General William Barr released a redacted version of the Mueller report. According to the Rolling Stone's report, Over the course of nearly 450 pages, the special counsel’s office detailed its findings regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether President Trump obstructed justice. Mueller writes that he didn’t obtain enough evidence to indicate the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to a degree that would warrant a prosecution, while placing the onus on Congress to respond to his findings regarding the president’s potential obstruction of justice as it sees fit. These findings are plenty damning and, as Democratic lawmakers have argued since the report’s release, indicate Barr was not being forthright when he cleared the president of any wrongdoing last month.
After Attorney General William Barr hosted a press conference earlier on Thursday, Trump tweeted a Game of Thrones meme — which is now pinned to the top of his Twitter page. HBO was not happy. “Though we can understand the enthusiasm for Game of Thrones now that the final season has arrived, we still prefer our intellectual property not be used for political purposes,” the network said in a statement.
Trump, not surprisingly, agrees with Barr. The president responded to the report’s release as expected, tweeting: “As I have been saying all along, NO COLLUSION – NO OBSTRUCTION,” along with a video.
Vice President Pence agreed with Trump, claiming, falsely, that the report “confirms” there was no collusion and no obstruction of justice. He also called for an investigation into the genesis of the probe. “Now that the Special Counsel investigation is completed, the American people have a right to know whether the initial investigation was in keeping with long-standing Justice Department standards — or even lawful at all,” he wrote in a statement. We must never allow our Justice Department to be exploited in pursuit of a political agenda.”
Democrats aren’t exactly seeing eye-to-eye with the White House, especially regarding the section that covers obstruction of justice. Soon after its release, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) released a joint statement arguing that the contents of Mueller’s report are not consistent with how Barr presented it when he released his “principal conclusions” last month. “As we continue to review the report, one thing is clear: Attorney General Barr presented a conclusion that the president did not obstruct justice while Mueller’s report appears to undercut that finding.”
Pelosi and Schumer also called for Mueller to testify publicly. “The only way to begin restoring public trust in the handling of the Special Counsel’s investigation is for Special Counsel Mueller himself to provide public testimony,” they wrote.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) feels similarly. Following Barr’s press conference Thursday morning, he tweeted a copy of a letter requesting Mueller appear before the committee. After the report was released, Nadler said he would follow through on his threats to issue a subpoena to obtain the entire, unredacted report. “Because Congress requires this material in order to perform our constitutionally-mandated responsibilities, I will issue a subpoena for the full report and the underlying materials,” he wrote.
George Conway, husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, believes the evidence collected by special counsel Robert Mueller is so “damning” for President Trump, he should be impeached immediately.
“What the Mueller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump,” Conway wrote in a scathing op-ed published in the Washington Post on Thursday night. “Congress now bears the solemn constitutional duty to excise that cancer without delay.”
Conway’s metaphor recalled White House counsel John Dean, who during Watergate famously told President Richard Nixon there was a cancer on the presidency and that it was “growing more deadly every day.”
Read this full report from Yahoo News on Mueller's redacted report published by AG William Barr:
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Full coverage: Mueller report is released
A redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report was released by Attorney General William Barr on Thursday. At a press conference ahead of its release, Barr defended Trump, saying there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller did identify “10 episodes” of President Trump’s possible obstruction of the probe in the 448-page report, but the attorney general determined there was not enough evidence to charge the president with a crime.
LIVE
8 hours agoDylan StablefordThe biggest revelations in the Mueller report
1. Mueller's probe identified 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by President Trump, but the special counsel said he could not conclusively determine whether Trump had committed a crime.2. “Oh my God. This is terrible,” President Trump told then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he learned about Mueller’s appointment. “This is the end of my Presidency. I'm f***ed.”3. Trump asked campaign aides to find Hillary Clinton's "missing" emails. On orders from Trump, campaign staffer and eventual national security adviser Michael Flynn tasked multiple people to carry out Trump's wishes.4. Sarah Sanders admitted to lying to the press about James Comey's firing.5. Mueller felt it would be difficult to prove that Donald Trump Jr. knew what he was doing when he arranged the infamous Trump Tower meeting with with an agent of the Russian government who was promising incriminating material on Clinton and her campaign.6. White House counsel Don McGahn exited his post after the president asked him to do what McGahn referred to as “crazy s***,” which included orders to tell Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Mueller.7. Attorney General William Barr's letter summarizing Mueller’s findings understated them by omitting key lines.8. President Trump sought to obstruct Mueller — but White House aides wouldn't let him do it.
8 hours agoKelli Grant- 8 hours agoDylan Stableford
Trump leaves White House
President Trump emerged from the White House holding hands with first lady Melania Trump on their way to Mar-a-Lago for Easter weekend. The president waved several times to the press line sevaral times, but did not answer the many shouted questions about the Mueller report.
- 8 hours agoKelli Grant
- 8 hours agoDylan Stableford
Schiff calls Mueller report 'deeply alarming'
"The report outlines multiple attempts by the president to mislead the country," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters at press briefing. "Those acts of obstruction, whether criminal or not, are deeply alarming from the President of the United States."He says Trump actions should be condemned by every single American.
- 8 hours agoDylan Stableford
- 8 hours agoDylan Stableford
"Impeachment is not worthwhile at this point. Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgement.”
— House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., to CNN
- 9 hours agoDylan Stableford
Isikoff: Trump sought to obstruct Mueller — but White House aides wouldn’t do it
Yahoo News Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff offers his analysis:
President Trump committed “multiple acts” aimed at obstructing the Russia investigation, but was ultimately saved from being charged with a crime in part because his top aides refused to carry out his orders.
That, in effect, is a principal conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report that, while clearing Trump or his campaign officials of criminally conspiring with the Russians during the 2016 election, documents with damning new details the president’s efforts to impede and shut down the Russia probe after he took office.
“Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations,” Mueller writes in a key passage of his report, which was released in redacted form Thursday morning by the Justice Department.
But when faced with Trump’s demands that they protect him and shut down the Russia probe, the president’s minions repeatedly disobeyed him, the report states.
“The president’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” the report found.
Still, the report spells out how an enraged president repeatedly sought to either shut down or curtail an investigation he was convinced from the outset was a “witch hunt” that was unfairly targeting him. Those new details help explain Mueller’s conclusion that while the investigation did not establish that the president committed a crime, “it also does not exonerate him.”
Read Isikoff's full take here.
- 9 hours agoKelli Grant
- 9 hours agoDylan Stableford
Nadler: Barr not credible
Shortly before Attorney General William Barr's press conference ahead of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., send a letter calling on Mueller to testify.“We clearly can’t believe what Attorney General Barr tells us,” Nadler said at a press briefing Thursday afternoon.Still Barr, who testified before Congress earlier this month, has agreed to appear before the committee on May 2, Nadler said.
- 10 hours agoDylan Stableford
- 10 hours agoDylan Stableford
'A stunning picture of bottomless corruption'
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, released a statement ripping both Barr and Trump:
“Now that we have seen some of this report, it’s obvious Congress needs to see all of it. Rather than act as the American people’s lawyer, the attorney general has become the president’s lawyer.“The redacted report paints a stunning picture of bottomless corruption. When a foreign adversary attacked our democracy, Donald Trump and his team were thrilled to reap the benefits. When an investigation was launched to get to the bottom of that effort, he launched a two-year interference campaign to conceal the truth from the American people.“Donald Trump has spent his entire presidency engaged in a nonstop campaign of obstruction, intimidation, and abuse of power. No one is above the law.”
10 hours agoGordon Donovan- 10 hours agoDylan Stableford
Pence mimics Trump: 'No collusion, no obstruction'
The vice president released a statement repeating Trump's oft-used refrain:Today’s release of the Special Counsel’s report confirms what the President and I have said since day one: there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and there was no obstruction of justice.After two years of investigation, conducted with the full cooperation of this Administration, that involved hundreds of witness interviews and millions of pages of documents, the American people can see for themselves: no collusion, no obstruction.Now that the Special Counsel investigation is completed, the American people have a right to know whether the initial investigation was in keeping with long-standing Justice Department standards — or even lawful at all. We must never allow our justice system to be exploited in pursuit of a political agenda.While many Democrats will cling to discredited allegations, the American people can be confident President Trump and I will continue to focus where we always have, on advancing an agenda that’s making our nation stronger, safer, and more secure.
- 10 hours agoGordon Donovan
- 11 hours agoDylan Stableford
'We're accepting apologies'
Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway tells reporters that the Mueller report vindicates Trump.“The big lie that you let fly for two years, it’s over folks,” she says. “It was a political proctology examine and we emerged with a clean bill of health.”Trump, she says, is in a "great mood."“We’re accepting apologies today, too, for anybody who feels the grace in offering them,” Conway adds.
- 12 hours agoGordon Donovan
- 12 hours agoDylan Stableford
Trump campaign claims exoneration
“President Trump has been fully and completely exonerated yet again," Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. "Now the tables have turned, and it’s time to investigate the liars who instigated this sham investigation into President Trump, motivated by political retribution and based on no evidence whatsoever. There is simply no denying that ‘spying did occur’ on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, as Attorney General Barr himself noted in testimony before Congress."Parscale added: "Now that the collusion and obstruction conspiracy theories have been exposed for the pathetic hoaxes they always were, the Obama-era DOJ and FBI must answer for their misdeeds and the scam that they perpetrated against the American people. Justice will be served.”
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