Mueller Says He Couldn’t Legally Charge Trump, But President Not Cleared Of Obstruction Of Justice

The Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III made his first public comments on his investigations over the past two years and stated that not only had his office not cleared the president of any potential obstruction of justice charges, but the special counsel was not even able to charge the president in the first place.

After announcing the formal end of the special counsel with the closing of the office and his own resignation, Mueller continued on to combat the idea that his investigation had cleared President Donald Trump of any wrongdoing. While Mueller’s report details 11 instances of possible obstruction of justice by the president and his team, no formal charges were laid by the special counsel. In his statement, Mueller claimed that the reason for this was due to the Department of Justice’s stance that a sitting president could not be indicted. Therefore, Mueller had no choice but to leave the issue of formal charges up to the Republican Attorney General William Barr, who chose not to indict the president who appointed him. Mueller heavily disagreed with this policy by the DOJ, blatantly calling it unconstitutional.

Mueller, who took no questions after his statement, also went on to clarify that he would not provide any new testimony to the House or the Senate. “I would not provide information beyond that which is already public,” he said. This assertion crushed the hopes of many House Democrats who wanted to use the special counsel as a weapon in the fight to remove Trump. Instead, Mueller stuck to his previous work, reaffirming that everything that he could possibly say was already in the report that had already been released by Barr. The special counsel also announced that the release of the underlying evidence that he founded his results on, which the Democrats have been clamoring the see, will be released based on a DOJ decision in which Mueller plays no part.

SLIDESHOW: TOP DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020

Even though the special counsel did concretely rule out any evidence that the president colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 elections, Mueller repeatedly stated that the Russians did indeed tamper with the elections in an attempt to bring Donald Trump into office. Even though there was sufficient evidence to prove that Trump himself had no part in the conspiracy, Mueller asserted that “there were multiple systematic attempts to interfere in our elections,” and that the hacking and releasing of Hillary Clinton‘s emails was specifically timed to do as much damage to her campaign as possible.