VietPress USA (May 29, 2019): The Christion Science Monitor said that 'That’s essentially what Robert Mueller said in his press conference today. The special counsel, who announced he was officially resigning, read a 10-minute statement in which he made clear that he did not want to testify before Congress – and that if he is called to do so, his testimony would not “go beyond” his written report.
Mr. Mueller did take the opportunity to reiterate some of his report’s key findings:
- That Russia, as alleged in a grand jury indictment, made “multiple, systemic efforts” to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election – a “concerted attack on our political system,” he said, that “deserves the attention of every American.”
- That his team found “insufficient evidence” to charge the Trump campaign with conspiring with Russia to influence the election.
- And that, when it came to obstruction of justice, his team “did not make a determination,” being bound by Justice Department guidelines that prevent a sitting president from being charged with a crime. “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime,” he said, “we would have said so.”
Perhaps most notably, Mr. Mueller stated, “The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.” That seems certain to further ramp up calls on the left for impeachment.
Still, all of this – as Mr. Mueller noted – was in the original report.
And there’s the rub. Because the Mueller report, which was supposed to provide clarity on a topic of vital national interest, has instead only seemed to muddy the waters. Some people read it as clear vindication for President Donald Trump. Others see it as a damning portrayal that makes a rock-solid case for impeachment."
This is the case for Robert Mueller critics demand "deep state" investigation and request former President Barack Obama to be testified before Congress.
Read this news from Yahoo News at: https://news.yahoo.com/it-was-a-coup-mueller-critics-demand-deep-state-investigation-obama-testimony-202827569.html
VietPress USA News
'It was a coup': Mueller critics demand 'deep state' investigation, Obama testimony
WASHINGTON — An hour before Robert Mueller prepared to give his one — and apparently only — public statement on the findings of his investigation into Russian electoral interference, calls for a very different sort of probe were taking place at an event organized by a conservative organization closely aligned with President Trump.
There were calls for President Obama to testify before Congress, as well as suspicions about FBI Director Christopher Wray. Trump, meanwhile, was a “crime victim,” while alleged spying on the Trump campaign by law enforcement entities in the Obama administration was nothing short of “terrorism.”
These were some of the assertions made during a panel hosted on Wednesday morning by Judicial Watch titled “Investigating the Investigators,” an evident reference to Mueller, who was appointed by the Department of Justice to investigate allegations that the Trump presidential campaign may have worked with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“It is time to look into the politicization of the DOJ and the intelligence community in their effort to undermine the president,” said a press release for the event, which took place at the studio of One America News, a conservative media outlet.
With the Mueller report now a public document — and a highly contentious one at that — the event was a window into how Trump’s supporters plan to reframe the debate over the president’s possible wrongdoing into an attack on the origins of the investigation. That approach appears to be directed by the White House, with Trump last week authorizing Attorney General William Barr to declassify documents related to potential surveillance on the Trump campaign. Barr has previously expressed concerns that the FBI may have conducted unauthorized “spying” during the 2016 election.
“Something very horrible went terribly wrong,” said another of the panelists, Christopher J. Farrell, also of Judicial Watch. “A hoax has been perpetrated upon” the American people, Farrell said, speaking of the Mueller report.
“It was a coup,” Farrell went on to say, albeit one without tanks in the streets. “It was an effort to unseat or destabilize the Trump administration.”
He said that that effort — much of it overseen by Trump’s own Department of Justice — was a worse abuse of power than Watergate or any other presidential scandal.
Victoria Toensing, a conservative lawyer, meanwhile accused FBI Director Wray of “stonewalling.” Wray was virtually the only Trump administration official to be criticized by the Judicial Watch panelists, who charged that he was more interested in protecting the FBI’s credibility than he was in letting Barr conduct a full investigation into “spying” by the bureau into the Trump campaign.
The most notable of the panelists was Carter Page, a foreign policy expert with the Trump campaign who authorities believed was trying to make contacts with Russia during the 2016 campaign. The FBI in 2016 obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to surveil Page, who has been largely unrepentant about his role in the Trump campaign. On Wednesday, he said he was the victim of “civil rights abuses.”
Sitting before a poster board that listed the priorities of the FBI, Page said he was less concerned with issues of spying — on him and the Trump campaign — than with “literally the terrorism associated with this.” He then proceeded to argue that what he called “false reports” and “attacks” against him and the Trump campaign met the definition of terrorism.
“We’re really all victims in this,” Page said, seeming to refer to the broader Trump movement and its affiliates.
Tom Fitton, the Judicial Watch head, who regularly defends Trump on Fox News, blasted the “dishonesty of the Mueller report.” A press release sent ahead of the panel said that same report “has exonerated President Trump of the false accusations of collusion and obstruction.”
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